Civil Liability of Fertility Clinics in Embryo Donation Errors

Despite years of practicing all methods of ART, Iranian legisla-tor just passed a short vague act called Act of embryo donation to infertile couples in 2005. Unfortunately, this rule is quiet about legal effects of errors in the process of embryo donation which could result in an unwanted outcome. The vast range of errors may include race, similarities, health and certain qualifi-cations of the embryo. Considering Iranian law that prohibited applicant parents from acquiring any information of donor’s identity, problem of identity errors has no grounds unless in an IVF process without intervention of a third party. However, any mistake in a simple IVF regarding identity of the embryo could be accounted as a tort as well as all above mentioned situations. As this study suggests, the legal approach through these variety of errors ought to be different based on significance of error, its’ effects on the pre-planned life of the couple and health of the child. Moreover, measuring all other variables like limits of medical knowledge and random nature of some outcomes should be considered as well. For instance, an error in sex se-lection of the embryo in a case where the applicants insist on having a girl baby because of their records of Haemophilia, may affect health of the resulted boy baby seriously. Here, sex selection plays a vital role and inevitably, the wrongdoer must recover for the damages. Meanwhile, sometimes occurred er-ror leads to a minor change in child qualifications which does not justify any legal action against the fertility clinic. Say an applicant couple who decide to have a tall baby. Does it seem rational to remedy an error which leads to a shorter child Such challenges inspired the author to define borders of civil liability in cases of embryo donation errors.Obviously, comparative studies especially by a look to United States’ jurisprudence help to gain a more comprehensive conclusion.

Keywords:

Embryo Donation , Donation Error , Civil Liability , ART