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As more of these types of cases unfold in the American courts, lessons must be learned by practitioners and patients alike. Not every individual who enters into fertility treatment is perfectly intentioned, and not every couple has a marriage that will survive the rigors of infertility, let alone other, more common stressors. Physicians are no doubt reluctant to add yet another hurdle into their patients' lives by requiring that legal counsel be sought by those inquiring about IVF. In A.Z. vs. B.Z., we are offered a glimpse of yet another possible scenario of the misuse, unintentional or not, of marital and of professional/institutional trust in the context of A.R.T.
Something as seemingly trivial as a consent form found to be legally-insufficient allowed for the furtherance of emotional chaos in a broken family's life. Until binding standards exist, such documents should be constructed by practitioners and then reviewed by patients, to the extent it is possible, within the legal realm as much as in the medical one. All involved should be wary of what the future may bring for the lives they are working to create.
© Tracy Morris
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