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The Parents Via Egg Donation Organization: February 2010

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Hey Arizona? Please Don’t Control My Reproductive Options, Thanks.

Today I am worried – I am worried about those who for various reasons have turned to creating or adding to their family via egg donation and now might have that option threatened --especially if they live in Arizona.

The Arizona legislature is attempting to push through two bills that are coming up in the Arizona legislature for a vote - SB 1306 / HB 2651 (both bills referred to hereinafter together as “SB 1306”).

If these laws are passed they would impose oodles of restrictions on those who choose to use egg donation as treatment for their infertility. And the reason I am worried is that for many couples – especially those who live in Arizona this is going to strip these poor people of their last remaining hope to try and have a child via egg donation.

SB 1306 is going to outlaw donor egg compensation that is provided to those who donate eggs to infertile individuals who are attempting to have children via egg donation. This bill is going deny egg donors appropriate compensation and under-compensate our egg donors and discourage them from helping anyone who chooses to have a baby. And I am sorry – but that’s just wrong.

Egg donation’s been around for a very long time – 20+ years to be exact. Egg donation treatment isn’t just for those who are in their 40’s and beyond. Egg donation treatment is also for young women who have undergone cancer treatment, who have lost their ovaries to ovarian cancer, or who have lost their eggs due to chemotherapy. And what about those who have been diagnosed with premature ovarian failure, or those who have a genetic disorder that they don’t want to pass down to their future children.

What kind of message is the Arizona legislature delivering by telling a cancer survivor that instead of being able to seek treatment in her state now she has to travel elsewhere for treatment because there are no egg donors in Arizona who can offer her eggs that will help her achieve her dream of becoming a mother?

You know the UK went this route in 2004. They made compensation for both sperm and egg donation illegal. Guess what? The number of egg and sperm donors dropped horribly. The people of the UK who want to have children and are faced with waiting years and years for an egg donor who will donate completely for free aren’t doing that. Guess what they are doing? They are going overseas – to the United States, the Ukraine, Spain, and the Czech Republic to attempt to create their family. And the people of Arizona they are going to be forced to do the same thing travel to another state for treatment. That is if they can afford the expense and the time. If they can’t – Game Over.

Is that fair for them? No it’s not.

If that’s not enough – this bill (SB 1306) was created to discourage doctors from providing egg donor treatment in the first place requiring more informed contests, more red tape along with a boat load of incredibly tough penalties. One being the loss of their medical license, if the physician doesn’t follow the new imposed rules exactly as spelled out in the law. And if you read the informed consent rules – they contain inaccurate and scary scary language that is put there purposely to be scary.

Now if you were an egg donor and had the crap scared out of you – would you donate your eggs? I bet not, and I don’t blame them.

What the legislatures of Arizona don’t get is that our amazing egg donors who choose by their own volition to donate their eggs do so because they want to. They genuinely want to donate their eggs to another woman so she can have that opportunity to become pregnant, have a baby and become a mother. In fact, lots of egg donors become egg donors because they have watched someone in their family or have friends who have been directly impacted by infertility and they want to somehow help.

ASRM has created guidelines for egg donation with the intent that all clinics follow. These guidelines include how to carefully screen egg donors, how to treat egg donors, care for egg donors, how many times an egg donor should cycle, and what we should compensate our egg donors. And who provides these egg donors with the exceptional care they receive. The very same doctors who treat the parent to be who so desperately wants to become a mother that’s who.

Clinics already provide the egg donor AND the recipient with informed consent. They don’t allow any patient to go through an egg donor cycle uninformed. In fact, by the time both recipient and egg donor have completed an egg donor cycle they know more about their own bodies, and Reproductive Endocrinology than I think they might like!

God Bless RESOLVE – RESOLVE brought this issue to my attention and RESOLVE also joins ASRM in opposing two other bills, SB 1307/ HB 2652, as they will place burdens on physicians in their labs that will undermine their clinical care of patients and interfere with the best practices in medicine that doctors practicing reproductive endocrinology and infertility medicine provide to every single patient.

How can you help? If you live in Arizona: send a letter to members of the House Health and Human Services Committee, click here.

To send a letter to members of the Senate Public Safety and Human Services Committee, click here.

To read the bills, click here and search on the bill numbers.

Right from the RESOLVE WEBSITE:

“On behalf of the more than 100,000 women and men in Arizona who are contending with infertility, RESOLVE opposes SB 1306 / HB 2651 because they will burden and perhaps eliminate an effective medical treatment that has been used all across this country for decades. It is women and men who are trying to build families who will suffer if these bills become law.”
If these bills are voted on and become law what’s going to stop legislatures from other states within the United States to follow suit? Please don’t say “Oh don’t worry it will never happen” – The United Kingdom said that and we saw clearly what happened there.
Don’t allow lawmakers who don’t get it make arbitrary laws for us because they think they know better.

Marna Gatlin is the Founder of Parents Via Egg Donation and a guest contributor to The AFA Blog.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Arizona Legistlature Pushing Through Damaging Bills and Laws Regarding Egg Donation

RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association strongly opposes two bills coming up for a vote in a matter of days in the Arizona state legislature: SB 1306 / HB 2651 (both bills referred to hereinafter together as “SB 1306”).

These proposed laws would impose new and unprecedented restrictions on donor egg treatment for infertility. Donor egg IVF therapy is actually the most successful medical treatment for many couples who are trying to have a baby. It has been used successfully in this country for more than 20 years. Yet, SB 1306 / HB 2651 would pull the rug out from under this medical treatment and take away the last remaining hope for many couples in Arizona.

SB 1306 discourages egg donor therapy by outlawing the compensation traditionally provided to those who donate eggs for infertile couples. All this does is under-compensate valuable medical donors and discourage them from helping people who want to have a baby. Arizona would be the first state in the U.S., to RESOLVE’s knowledge, to deny egg donors appropriate compensation.

Egg donation therapy is the standard of care for many couples -- including young women who have undergone lifesaving cancer treatment and women facing the heartbreak of premature ovarian failure. We strongly object to the Arizona legislature in effect telling a young cancer survivor that she now needs to plan the additional expense of traveling for infertility treatment because there are no donors in Arizona to offer the treatment that will give her the chance of having a child.

When the United Kingdom removed compensation from egg and sperm donation in 2004, the number of donors dropped drastically. Instead of waiting years for one of the rare donors, couples turned to medical tourism, leaving the country for their medical treatment. Couples in Arizona will likely follow the same path, leaving for other states -- if they can afford the time and expense. If not, their dreams of a family will end.

Furthermore, SB 1306 is designed to discourage doctors from providing donor egg treatment by imposing a raft of new informed consent requirements coupled with harsh penalties -- loss of medical license -- if a doctor does not follow the new rules to the letter. The informed consent rules themselves contain inaccurate and purposefully scary language that would, again, discourage even the most compassionate women from donating eggs.

Women who choose to donate their eggs so that other families may have the chance of having a child, do so voluntarily. Studies have shown that many of these women are familiar with infertility from watching a family member or friend go through this devastating disease. ASRM guidelines provide that egg donors undergo careful screening, and they receive excellent medical care by the same reproductive endocrinologists who treat the hopeful parents. Like all doctors, infertility specialists provide patients, including egg donors, with appropriate information for informed consent. SB 1306, with its scary additional language, clearly has an agenda to discourage treatment via egg donation, heedless of the harm this could do to infertility patients who need the treatment.

RESOLVE also joins ASRM in opposing two other bills, SB 1307/ HB 2652, as they will place burdens on physicians in their labs that will undermine their clinical care of patients and interfere with the best practices in medicine that doctors practicing reproductive endocrinology and infertility medicine provide to every single patient.

To send a letter to members of the House Health and Human Services Committee, click here.

To send a letter to members of the Senate Public Safety and Human Services Committe, click here.

To read the bills, click here and search on the bill numbers.

On behalf of the more than 100,000 women and men in Arizona who are contending with infertility, RESOLVE opposes SB 1306 / HB 2651 because they will burden and perhaps eliminate an effective medical treatment that has been used all across this country for decades.

It is women and men who are trying to build families who will suffer if these bills become law.


We need your support of this Bill! If your state delegate is on the Health and Government Operations Committee we need you to write to your Delegate today! Sending a letter of support for this bill will only take a few minutes of your time. To find out who your Delegate is, click here.

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Friday, February 12, 2010

Parents Via Egg Donation (PVED) is putting a call out to all parents and parents to be who would like to serve as an advisor on the PVED Advisory Board as a "Consumer Advisor". We are looking for individuals who have no professional ties or affiliation with the Infertility or Third Party Reproductive industry who are either attempting to be or are parents via egg donation.

If you are interested in hearing more about an advisory position and what that would entail please email: marna@pved.org or call PVED at 503.987.1433

Parents Via Egg Donation is a 501c3 Organization that was created to provide an informational and supportive environment where parents and parents-to-be can learn and share information about all facets of the egg donation process. Our mission is to educate, support, and empower families and individuals at any stage of the process who choose to use egg donation to build a family. We share information about agencies, legal and medical professionals, treatment centers, mental health therapists, pharmaceutical companies, and other resources.


Marna Gatlin
Parents Via Egg Donation
503.987.1433
marna@parentsviaeggdonation.org

http://pved.org
"Where ever you are in the process there is always a place in our community for you"

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