MONTREAL - A pioneering fertility procedure in which a mother is freezing her eggs for her seven-year-old daughter to be able to use later in life ignores the rights of the future child, says one of Canada's top biomedical ethicists.
A team of McGill researchers has announced they had begun the process of freezing a Montreal woman's eggs to make them available to her daughter, who has a medical condition that threatens her fertility.
"We have already frozen the eggs of women who are about to live through premature menopause or undergo chemotherapy,'' the centre's Dr. Yariv Gidoni told a weekend conference in Montreal on Turner's Syndrome.
"This is the first time that we freeze a woman's eggs that are destined for another woman.''
But Margaret Somerville, who heads McGill University's Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, says the procedure raises important ethical questions.
"What are the rights of a child not to be brought into existence in this way?'' Somerville said in an interview.
"I think here there was a lot of good intentions . . . but we also have to ask about that future child.''
Somerville points out that there is an ever-growing body of literature that suggests many donor-conceived children -- so-called test-tube babies -- resent the decisions that led to their creation.
The Montreal woman's daughter will eventually have to make a similar decision about whether to use her mother's eggs.
"Can we reasonably anticipate that a child would consent to having its sister be its gestational mother, and to be a sister to the woman who gives birth to it?" asked Somerville.
Even the woman involved in the procedure admits it is laden with ethical problems.
"After a year of reflection, we came to the conclusion that we could do this,'' Melanie Boivin, 36, told Montreal La Presse. "As for the rest, there will be day to decide whether she wants to use these eggs or not."
Boivin is in the midst of an intense three-step procedure at Montreal's Royal Victoria that should be completed by the summer.
A member of Assisted Human Reproduction Canada, which regulates the country's reproductive technologies, told The Canadian Press the agency is likely to examine the case in the near future.
As for Somerville, her opposition is rooted in the belief that "children have a right to natural biological origins.''
It is a stand that has landed the internationally renowned ethicist in hot water in the past, with its implication that society should not recognize same-sex marriages.
But Somerville defended her position as being part of a move within human rights to protect the rights of children and the unborn.
"The very nature of who you are is probably your personal identity,'' she said. "(And) as genetics become more important we seem to be disregarding that for these kids."
