Hum. Reprod. Advance Access originally published online on November 10, 2006
Human Reproduction 2007 22(3):902-903; doi:10.1093/humrep/del444
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Letters to the editor |
Reply: Considerations of third-party reproduction in Iran
Antalya IVF, Antalya, Turkey
1 To whom correspondence should be addressed at: Antalya IVF, Halide Edip Cad. No. 7, Antalya 07080, Turkey. E-mail: misikoglu{at}hotmail.com
Sir,
We greatly appreciate the valuable comment by Dr Zahedi on our article entitled ‘Public opinion regarding oocyte donation in Turkey: first data from a secular population among the Islamic world’. During the preparation of our manuscript, we consulted with Dr Azimaraghi from Iran (Azimaraghi and Stones-Abbasi, 2004
) and also with Dr Schenker JG from Israel (who has several publications on the issue) regarding the status of third-party reproduction in the Islamic world. We realized that although oocyte donation is practised in Iran, most of the professionals were not fully aware of the details of the regulations. For this reason, the information presented by Dr Zahedi is extremely important. As far as I know, Iran is the only country in the Islamic world where third-party reproductive treatment is allowed.
Sperm donation is not permitted in any Islamic country so far. Interestingly, egg donation is permitted in less than one-third of 39 European countries practising assisted reproductive treatment, but sperm donation is allowed in 24 of 39 countries (Schenker, 1997). Because culture is patriarchal based especially in eastern societies including the Persian culture, lineage and genetics is believed to be transmitted via sperm. This common belief in the population probably influences the law-makers to ban sperm donation while permitting oocyte donation.
Dr Zahedi emphasizes the importance of seeking approaches for managing the consequences of embryo donation before the regulations. We also agree that this would be the best approach to unravel the existing dilemmas. Actually, we conducted the mentioned study (Isikoglu et al., 2006) to reveal public opinion to make a baseline for regulations. We hope that future studies regarding public opinion and ethical and socials concerns will appear from different countries.
References
Azimaraghi O and Stones-Abbasi A. ( February 5–7, 2004) Abstracts of the 2nd International ED Conference. Diversity of Attitudes Towards ED Within the Iranian Communities , Valencia, Spain 2004.
Isikoglu M, Senol Y, Berkkanoglu M, Ozgur K, Donmez L, Stones-Abbasi A. (2006) Public opinion regarding oocyte donation in Turkey: first data from a secular population among the Islamic world. Hum Reprod 21:1318–323.
Schenker JG. (1997) Assisted reproduction practice in Europe: legal and ethical aspects. Hum Reprod Update 3:2173–184.
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