Ethical, social and legal aspects of fertility treatment

Principal Supervisor: Joyce Harper

Subsidiary Supervisor: Dan Reisel

Project Summary:

The Embryology, IVF and Reproductive Genetics group and the IfWH Centre for Ethics in Women’s Health are undertaking research to look at the social, ethical and legal aspects of assisted reproductive technologies. There are two parts to the PhD. 

The first is to look at the social, ethical and legal aspects of egg freezing for social and medical reasons. The research will include focus groups and questionnaires to women who are considering or have undergone egg freezing, as well as interviews with providers. The team have recently written a review on oocyte cryopreservation which is published in Human Reproduction Update. 

The second part of the project will look at the social, ethical and legal aspects of egg and sperm donation. This will include examining cross border reproductive care and the use of the internet. Online co-parenting arrangements will also be examined. The research will involve interviews with individuals seeking fertility, donor-conceived offspring and will also include in-depth analysis of the perception of historical donor anonymity among donor offspring. Furthermore, the study will look at donor anonymity in the context of the spread of both direct-to-consumer testing and the mainstreaming of genomic testing in the clinical context.