Regulate ova donations by law

By Haaretz Editorial Tags: israel news The arrest of 30 Israelis at a fertility clinic in Romania has once again raised an issue that Israel's legislature has evidently been trying to ignore for the last nine years. Ever since 2000, when Prof. Zion Ben-Rafael and some of his colleagues were arrested on charges of "commerce in ova" (a murky definition of a murky activity), Israel has suffered a serious shortage of eggs for fertility treatments. The gynecologists arrested in 2000 were accused of administering hormonal stimuli to women who received fertility treatments from them - something that endangered the women's lives - to cause these women to produce as many eggs as possible so that the doctors could implant the leftover eggs in other women in exchange for payment. The issue at hand is not fertility treatments for young women suffering from fertility problems, but rather for older women, whose eggs are no longer fertile but who nevertheless want a child of their own and are willing to pay a high price for it, in terms of both money and the toll it exacts on their bodies. However, Israeli law allows only women who are undergoing fertility treatments to donate eggs, and voluntary donations are few. None of the other questions that egg donation raises - health, ethical, societal and economic issues - are regulated by law at all. And since women who want to get pregnant are willing to do almost anything, there is a fear that this legal ambiguity could serve as a cover to exploit them. Moreover, like many other cases in which the law fails to address important areas of life, the problem of women who seek to get pregnant has been "solved" via overseas clinics. The arrests in Romania were made, according to the Romanian authorities, because the Israeli clinic in question was operating without a license, and also paid egg donors while collecting payment from donees, in violation of Romanian law (though these charges have not yet been proved). Even if it turns out that those arrested are innocent of any crime and their actions were completely legal, it is clear that fobbing the problem off on overseas clinics is not the proper solution. Advertisement This latest imbroglio is particularly unnecessary given that a detailed bill that addresses all the complex issues raised by egg donations - including financial compensation to donors, age limits for both donors and donees, and the obligation of confidentiality - has been before the Knesset for more than two years now. The bill addresses all the relevant restrictions from the standpoint of Jewish law (including the laws of mamzerut, or bastardy, and forbidden sexual relations), the precepts of other religions and ethical considerations. It does this in light of both Israel's own legislation on health and fertility issues and the recent revolutionary technological advances in medicine. Now, after the Knesset has neglected this bill for far too long, it has landed on the doorstep of the new deputy health minister, Yaakov Litzman - who, by all signs, is not particularly interested in advancing legislation of this type. It would be a grave error if Knesset members were to allow Litzman to bury this bill. Every delay will merely prolong the anomaly and open the door to underground fertility treatments, dubious financial transactions, misery and risk. The bill admittedly addresses the pain of only a small group. But beyond this group's legitimate demand for succor, the bill has a more fundamental importance in that it attempts to deal with the problem of modern technology in a complex societal and religious reality.