Fertility Law Canada™ at D2Law LLP - Sara R. Cohen, LLB.



                                               


                                                      
  • Fertility Law Canada - surrogacy agreements, egg donor agreements, sperm donor agreements, legal parentage
  • Sara R. Cohen
  • Anatoly Dvorkin
  • Fertility Law in Canada
  • Surrogacy Law in Canada
  • Legal Parentage - Declaration of Parentage in Ontario and Second Parent Adoption
  • Egg Donor Law in Canada
  • Sperm Donor Law in Canada
  • Embryo Donation Law in Canada
  • Multi-parent Agreements
  • LGBT Family Building
  • Fertility Law Canada Blog
  • Media, Papers and Selected Speaking Engagements
  • Testimonials
  • Contact
  • Helpful Links - fertility resources
  • Francais
  • Terms of Use

Baby Steps towards a Donor Registry in Canada? Using the Safety of Sperm and Ova Regulations as Building Blocks

2/2/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
This coming Tuesday, February 4, 2020, the new Safety of Sperm and Ova Regulations (the "Safety Regulations") come into force.  For the first time, Canada will not only be regulating the donor sperm imported and used in Canada, but will also be regulating donor ova.  There are many implications to these new regulations, but I want to focus on one in particular that hasn't received a lot of attention and may in fact be unintentional: the Safety Regulations are putting into place requirements that make it possible to trace donor ova and sperm between the donors and the recipients and back.  That, coupled with requirements to keep records about the donor's health and genetic screening or testing, has the potential to provide more medical information to donor conceived people than is currently available to them, at least in some cases.  

There are a number of stakeholders, myself included, who believe that a mandatory donor registry is of critical importance.  My ideal donor registry would most certainly collect, store and distribute more information than the Safety Regulations provide for, including an ability to count the number of cycles a particular donor participates in, the use of the gametes from a specific donor within a specific population, and provide the ability for donor conceived people and their parents to connect with other families who used gametes from the same donor, if they so desire.  Following the Reference re Assisted Human Reproduction Act decision, though, I believe that this infrastructure, must come from the provincial government, and would likely be relevant only to donations which occur under that province's jurisdiction (i.e. provincial donor registries may not include donor gametes imported from other jurisdictions such as the US, which currently make up a very large percentage of the donor gametes used in Canada).    

There are problems with using the Safety Regulations as the foundation for a donor registry, including that the Regulations only require that records be kept for ten years after the donor gametes were last used. Further, it is not clear whether the government has any intention to allow this information to be accessed by parents of donor conceived people or the donor conceived people themselves, as such access is not contemplated by the Safety Regulations.  While these may be baby steps, they are steps in the right direction requiring government to ensure that information that is important to donor conceived people is safeguarded for them in the future.  If this ever was to lead to a donor registry, the provincial governments will have to pick up the mantle and move forward.

0 Comments
    Picture

    Author

    Sara R. Cohen practices fertility law at Fertility Law Canada™ in Toronto, Canada with clients across the country and beyond.  She loves what she does, and it shows!

    Archives

    February 2020
    October 2016
    May 2016
    December 2015
    June 2015
    March 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    June 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011

    Categories

    All
    2011
    2012
    Abortion
    Age
    Ahra
    Ahrc
    Andre Picard
    Anonymous Donation
    Asrm
    Assisted Human Reproduction Act
    Assisted Human Reproduction Canada
    Blair Commission
    Blessings
    Building Family
    Canadian Medical Association Journal
    Cbc
    Cmaj
    Declaration Of Parentage
    Discrimination
    Donor Insemination
    Donor Sperm
    Egg Bank
    Egg Donation
    Egg Donor
    Embryo Donor
    Embryo Selection
    Ethics
    Federal Budget
    Feminism
    Fertility Law
    Fertility Law Canada
    Frozen Eggs
    Frozen Sperm
    Gamete
    Gender
    Grateful
    Handmaids Tale
    Hope
    Infertility
    Intended Parents
    Isis Regional Fertility Centre
    Ivf
    J.C.M. V. A.N.A.
    Legal Parentage
    Legal Status At The Federal Level Of Assisted Human Reproduction In Canada
    Lgbt
    Margaret Atwood
    Ova
    Parliament Background Paper
    Pgd
    Pratten
    Pride
    Professor Karen Busby
    Property Law
    Repromed
    Semen Regulations
    Sex Selective Abortions
    Shana Tova
    Sperm
    Sperm Bank
    Sperm Donation
    Sperm Donor
    Supreme Court Of Canada
    Supreme Court Of Canada Reference Re Assisted Human Reproduction Act
    Surrogacy
    Surrogacy In Canada
    The World Egg Bank
    Three-person Ivf
    Warawa
    What Is Fertility Law

    RSS Feed

Contact us by email at sara@fertilitylawcanada.com  or phone at 416.907.2189
Photos used under Creative Commons from Sharon & Nikki McCutcheon, juni xu, LGBTQ Portraits Project, jodyfrost, Zdenko Zivkovic, gemmerich, Jon Ovington, Thirteen Of Clubs, nerdcoregirl, Klovovi, aresauburn™, Daquella manera, vchili, gezelle, spoilt.exile, Racchio, Nina Matthews Photography