Reproductive Technologies – Solution For Fertility Problems
reproductive technologies
Infertility is a growing problem in many country. And there has been a corresponding growth in a “reproductive technologies industry” to provide a solution. Since children are a wonderful gift of marriage, it is a good thing to try to overcome the obstacles that prevent children from being conceived and born.
Reproductive technology encompasses all current and anticipated uses of technology in human and animal reproduction, including assisted reproductive technology, contraception and others. Twenty years ago, the only reproductive technologies available to infertile couples were artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization. Since that time, there has been an explosion of reproductive and genetic technologies, and a multitude of options are now available both to those with fertility problems and to those who wish not to pass on inheritable conditions to their offspring. There are many of the new reproductive technologies (NRTs) available such as donating gametes (eggs and sperm) and surrogacy.
GAMETE DONATION
Gametes – the reproductive cells of both men and women – are the male sperm and the female eggs (or ova). Sperm, or semen, banks for donated sperm have been in existence for a number of years, as donated sperm was requested for use in artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization procedures. Egg donation, however, is a much more recent phenomenon due to the significantly more elaborate techniques required to extract eggs from a woman’s ovaries.
SURROGACY
Surrogacy is also referred to as a pre-conception arrangement, or contract motherhood, and is one of the more ethically volatile categories of the NRTs. The surrogate may either be artificially inseminated with the sperm of the commissioning father and will become the genetic mother (genetic surrogate), or she may have an embryo produced through IVF of the commissioning couple’s gametes, in which case the surrogate provides only the womb for gestation and makes no genetic contribution (gestational surrogate).
