In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a process of fertilisation where an egg is combined with sperm in vitro. The process involves monitoring and stimulating a woman's ovulatory process, removing an ovum or ova from her ovaries and letting sperm fertilise them in a culture medium in a laboratory. After the fertilised egg (zygote) undergoes embryo culture for 2–6 days, it is transferred by catheter into the uterus, with the intention of establishing a successful pregnancy.
Abortion in the United Kingdom is de facto available through the Abortion Act 1967 in Great Britain, and the Abortion (No.2) Regulations 2020. The Abortion Act 1967 provides a legal defence for doctors to perform abortions, though abortion also remains a criminal offence under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. Although a number of abortions did take place before the 1967 Act, there have been around 10 million abortions in the United Kingdom. Around 200,000 abortions are carried out in England and Wales each year and just under 14,000 in Scotland; the most common reason cited under the ICD-10 classification system for around 98% of all abortions is "risk to woman's mental health."
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis is the genetic profiling of embryos prior to implantation, and sometimes even of oocytes prior to fertilization. PGD is considered in a similar fashion to prenatal diagnosis. When used to screen for a specific genetic disease, its main advantage is that it avoids selective abortion, as the method makes it highly likely that the baby will be free of the disease under consideration. PGD thus is an adjunct to assisted reproductive technology, and requires in vitro fertilization (IVF) to obtain oocytes or embryos for evaluation. Embryos are generally obtained through blastomere or blastocyst biopsy. The latter technique has proved to be less deleterious for the embryo, therefore it is advisable to perform the biopsy around day 5 or 6 of development.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care in the United Kingdom. It is a statutory body that regulates and inspects all clinics in the United Kingdom providing in vitro fertilisation (IVF), artificial insemination and the storage of human eggs, sperm or embryos. It also regulates human embryo research.
A cytoplasmic hybrid is a eukaryotic cell line produced by the fusion of a whole cell with a cytoplast. Cytoplasts are enucleated cells. This enucleation can be effected by simultaneous application of centrifugal force and treatment of the cell with an agent that disrupts the cytoskeleton. A special case of cybrid formation involves the use of rho-zero cells as the whole cell partner in the fusion. Rho-zero cells are cells which have been depleted of their own mitochondrial DNA by prolonged incubation with ethidium bromide, a chemical which inhibits mitochondrial DNA replication. The rho-zero cells do retain mitochondria and can grow in rich culture medium with certain supplements. They do retain their own nuclear genome. A cybrid is then a hybrid cell which mixes the nuclear genes from one cell with the mitochondrial genes from another cell. Using this powerful tool, it makes it possible to dissociate contribution from the mitochondrial genes vs that of the nuclear genes.
The Abortion Act 1967 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom legalising abortions on certain grounds by registered practitioners, and regulating the tax-paid provision of such medical practices through the National Health Service (NHS).
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) is a British charity whose stated purpose is to avoid unwanted pregnancy by advocating and providing high quality, affordable services to prevent or end unwanted pregnancies with contraception or by abortion."
Controversy over the beginning of pregnancy occurs in different contexts, particularly as it is discussed within the debate of abortion in the United States. Because an abortion is defined as ending an established pregnancy, rather than as destroying a fertilized egg, depending on when pregnancy is considered to begin, some methods of birth control as well as some methods of infertility treatment might be classified as causing abortions.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It created the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority which is in charge of human embryo research, along with monitoring and licensing fertility clinics in the United Kingdom.
Posthumous sperm retrieval (PSR) is a procedure in which spermatozoa are collected from the testes of a human corpse after brain death. There has been significant debate over the ethics and legality of the procedure, and on the legal rights of the child and surviving parent if the gametes are used for impregnation.
Fertility tourism is the practice of traveling to another country or jurisdiction for fertility treatment, and may be regarded as a form of medical tourism. A person who can become pregnant is considered to have fertility issues if they are unable to have a clinical pregnancy after 12 months of unprotected intercourse. Infertility, or the inability to get pregnant, affects about 8-12% of couples looking to conceive or 186 million people globally. In some places, rates of infertility surpass the global average and can go up to 30% depending on the country. Areas with lack of resources, such as assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), tend to correlate with the highest rates of infertility.
Child destruction is the name of a statutory offence in England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Hong Kong. The offence of that name has been abolished and replaced in Victoria, Australia.
Stem cell laws are the law rules, and policy governance concerning the sources, research, and uses in treatment of stem cells in humans. These laws have been the source of much controversy and vary significantly by country. In the European Union, stem cell research using the human embryo is permitted in Sweden, Spain, Finland, Belgium, Greece, Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands; however, it is illegal in Germany, Austria, Ireland, Italy, and Portugal. The issue has similarly divided the United States, with several states enforcing a complete ban and others giving support. Elsewhere, Japan, India, Iran, Israel, South Korea, China, and Australia are supportive. However, New Zealand, most of Africa, and most of South America are restrictive.
Surrogacy in India and Indian surrogates became increasingly popular amongst intended parents in industrialised nations because of the relatively low costs and easy access offered by Indian surrogacy agencies. Clinics charged patients between $10,000 and $28,000 for the complete package, including fertilization, the surrogate's fee, and delivery of the baby at a hospital. Including the costs of flight tickets, medical procedures and hotels, this represented roughly a third of the price of the procedure in the UK and a fifth of that in the US. Surrogate mothers received medical, nutritional and overall health care through surrogacy agreements.
Mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT), sometimes called mitochondrial donation, is the replacement of mitochondria in one or more cells to prevent or ameliorate disease. MRT originated as a special form of in vitro fertilisation in which some or all of the future baby's mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) comes from a third party. This technique is used in cases when mothers carry genes for mitochondrial diseases. The therapy is approved for use in the United Kingdom. A second application is to use autologous mitochondria to replace mitochondria in damaged tissue to restore the tissue to a functional state. This has been used in clinical research in the United States to treat cardiac-compromised newborns.
The Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It created the offence of child destruction. The Act retains three sections, the most substantive legal changes of which are in the first section.
The legal aspects of surrogacy in any particular jurisdiction tend to hinge on a few central questions:
Law in Australia with regard to children is often based on what is considered to be in the best interest of the child. The traditional and often used assumption is that children need both a mother and a father, which plays an important role in divorce and custodial proceedings, and has carried over into adoption and fertility procedures. As of April 2018 all Australian states and territories allow adoption by same-sex couples.
Intersex people are born with variations in physical and sex characteristics including those of the chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies". Such variations may involve genital ambiguity, and combinations of chromosomal genotype and sexual phenotype other than XY-male and XX-female. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis allows the elimination of embryos and fetuses with intersex traits and thus has an impact on discrimination against intersex people.
Abortion in South Korea was decriminalized, effective 1 January 2021, by a 2019 order of the Constitutional Court of Korea.
