A study of judicial precedent on determination of moral competence as stipulated in the embryo donation law of Iran

Background: Item (A) of section 2 of the law on the Method of Embryo Donation to Infertile couples, specifies moral competence as one of the conditions of the couples. Moral competence may be criticized from two perspectives: on the one hand, this is a broad and vague concept, and on the other, methods of verifying the moral competence are uncertain..Methods: Exposition and analysis of courts verdicts, having been issued on the basis of the embryo donation law, lay the ground for the study of the afore-mentioned concept in the law.Result: It seems that boundaries of the concept of moral competence are not clear. This in turn leaves ample room for arbitrary decisions on determination of the competence. However, the courts, in issuing their verdicts, have made a resort to certain objective criteria, some of which have already been referred to in the said law, such as non-addiction to alcohol and narcotics, while some other have been ignored by the legislator, such as having no criminal record. In addition, the mentioned methods of determination of moral competence by the courts do infringe the required confidentiality to a considerable extent. Methods such as testimony of witnesses, signature and approval of the informed, explicit or implicit investigation and affidavits undersigned by the informed and the trusted generally runs counter to principles of confidentiality in the provision of infertility treatments.Conclusion: Two main criticisms may be raised on the determination, by the courts, of moral competence as stipulated in the embryo donation law: (1) Lack of objective criteria for determining the moral competence; and (2) Infringement of confidentiality. It seems that we need to put forward certain objective criteria by which the competence of infertile couples for receiving embryos can be determined, and in a way that the required confidentiality is kept

Keywords:

Confidentiality , Criteria , Embryo donation , Moral competence