Confusion about buying and selling eggs and sperm – Part 3: Health consequences, the risk of inbreeding marriage

Currently, our country’s law does not have any regulations allowing the sale and purchase of eggs and sperm, but only for donating eggs and sperm, but must meet the conditions as prescribed˳

Many consequences later

Dr˳ Ly Thai Loc – head of infertility department at Hung Vuong Hospital (HCMC) – said that the rampant trading of eggs and sperm has many potential risks˳

In principle, each egg/sperm donor can only give one recipient˳ When these gametes form embryos and when the recipient successfully gives birth, the remaining embryos must be destroyed, not used anymore˳ If more children are created, the probability that the children will have a consanguineous marriage in the future increases, which can easily cause genetic diseases˳

People who give eggs many times can be affected to health, because each time they give eggs, they need to inject drugs to stimulate the ovaries for many days˳ procedure time such as intra-abdominal bleeding, severe infection, needle puncture in abdominal organs such as large intestine, small intestine…

Doctor Loc said that to prevent this, the most effective measure is that all IVF centers must have a good identification system, which is connected between IVF centers throughout the country˳ only by citizen identification, but also by more sophisticated identification features such as fingerprints, irises…, so that a sperm/egg donor can no longer go to another donor center˳

Wrong many rules

Dr˳ Le Thi Minh Chau – head of infertility department at Tu Du Hospital (HCMC) – said that the conditions and procedures for donating and receiving eggs (ovules)/sperm at the hospital comply with Decree 10/2015 of Government about giving birth by scientific method and then regulated surrogacy for humanitarian purposes˳

Accordingly, the application for donating and receiving eggs and sperm at the hospital will be carefully reviewed and legal documents˳ Donors of sperm and eggs are voluntary and only give once as prescribed˳

Before donating eggs and sperm, donors must be examined and tested according to regulations to screen for no genetic diseases, infectious diseases, no mental diseases…

Particularly in the case of egg donation, the egg donor is usually a young woman who is married, has one child and has the consent of her husband˳ The hospital does not encourage single, childless or young people to donate eggs because of the potential risk of bleeding, infection… Single mothers must fully comply with conditions including a new certificate of singleness˳ given eggs˳

Infertile couples, when making an application for an egg, must have all legal documents as prescribed, such as a marriage certificate, and perform the tests as indicated˳ Regarding sperm donation/receiving, the hospital follows the principle of anonymity, because the number of “asking” samples is more than “donating” samples, the hospital encourages infertile couples to mobilize to find qualified sperm samples for sperm donation˳ exchange samples available at the sperm bank˳

In fact, the cases of egg donation are usually siblings, or cousins ​​in the wife’s family˳ It is rare for people from outside the family to donate eggs for humanitarian purposes because the donation/receiving process involves many complicated processes, many complications, and many dangers˳ However, the fact that trading has taken place shows that there has been a situation of “crossing the fence”, which is not regulated, which can lead to dangers to the donor’s health and the risk of inbreeding marriage as mentioned above˳ ˳

Meanwhile, because sperm donation/donation is much simpler, there is a risk of selling sperm to different recipients˳ This is the most important point that the health system and the law must actively prevent so as not to have bad consequences for the next generation˳

Can you stop it?

Thai Loc said that in order to prevent the making of fake documents for cases of egg donation, sperm donation, even illegal surrogacy, the process of IVF centers must be very strict, especially especially the patient identification process˳ In special cases, it is necessary to link with the criminal department of the police to detect suspected fraud cases˳

In particular, the surrogacy process must be tightened, through many rounds, many floors, to handle the arising in life (infertile families but no sisters in the same row as egg donors…)˳

According to a lawyer in Ho Chi Minh City, although our country’s law has provisions on donating eggs and sperm, the sanctions for violations of the above regulations are not enough deterrent˳ This is also the cause of the illegal sale of sperm and ovum˳

The chaos of buying and selling eggs and sperm – Part 2: Swapping sperm, pushing prices up

Sperm from self-sale items, even ‘don’t give away’, to the hands of ‘triggers’ pushing the price up sky-high with a sophisticated trick of swapping˳