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Melanie Blum, an attorney who specializes in reproductive rights law, sees things a little differently after her experience with the University of California at Irvine and its reproductive technology clinic.
"I cried for the first year," she says about the clients she began representing in 1995. "Infertility patients are so desperate to have a child, making this an incredibly vulnerable population." This many years later, she says her feelings have solidified. "Enough already."
Blum was the lead attorney in what is often referred to as "the UCI scandal," a case in which the worst was confirmed: doctors had stolen eggs from fertility patients and sold them to other unsuspecting couples. In some cases, patients who never experienced successful pregnancy after cycle upon cycle of drugs and procedures later learned that a genetic child of their own did indeed exist, born to another couple.
Now, Blum says she has proof necessary to begin proceedings against UCI for doing the same thing with actual embryos. What is worse is that she says similar things are happening all over the country.
UCI's fertility clinic has been closed, and the physicians fired. Fortunately for California, as a direct result of the UCI case, there is now legislation in place that makes the unauthorized use of a woman's eggs a felony.
© Tracy Morris
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