Eggs and sperm; Yours, mine and theirs: Controversies and concrete strategies for addressing them
Tuesday 26 July 2011, 2:00pm - 3:20pm

LOCATION: WASHINGTON IRVING ROOM

This session highlighted advocacy, policy and academic efforts in the United States that address a progressive vision of several aspects of assisted reproductive technologies: the retrieval of women’s eggs for research or fertility purposes; the issues that anonymous provision of sperm and eggs raise for the children produced with them and the families that are formed; and the concerns and assumptions surrounding egg freezing. We explored efforts including academic and advocacy work to understand young women’s perspectives of egg donation, campus screenings of films such as Eggsploitation, action to create an egg donor registry, and scholarship around egg freezing and anonymous gamete donation. The session allowed participants to discuss the pros and cons of various strategies, develop mechanisms for collaboration, anticipate potential allies and opponents, and identify new strategies on which we can work together.