Romania Transplant Auth Urges Health Min To Scarp Ban On Assisted Human Reproduction

ANT director, doctor Dan Luscalov, said the ministry should either cancel the new Order no. 1156/29.09.2009 or add a new section to article 158 of Law 95/2006 to include a content similar with article 6 of Order 1,290, which was canceled by the new order.

Representatives of clinics for assisted human reproduction on Wednesday deemed the order an abuse, considering that procreation is a fundamental right.

Most representatives of clinics for assisted human reproduction said they did not even know about the order and stressed they learned about it in the media.

On the other hand, some doctors said Bazac probably wanted to regulate these medical services, namely to allow the Health Insurance House to cover the costs of these services, in certain conditions, for a certain number of attempts to have children for each couple.

Other doctors, however, deemed the order absurd, stressing there is no other alternative for couples that cannot have children.

Earlier Wednesday, the ministry asked the agency to voice its standpoint regarding further amendments to the law banning assisted reproduction procedures, to avoid imposing restrictions on medical procedures.

Bazac signed on September 23 an order banning paid in-vitro fertilization and artificial insemination and setting that assisted reproduction procedures fall in the category of human egg trafficking.

The order, published in the Official Journal of Romania on September 29, cancels an article of the law regulating transplant procedures, whereby state-run hospitals and private clinics were allowed to perform paid in-vitro fertilization and artificial insemination.

People close to the matter said the order was issued following the egg trafficking scandal over the past few months involving Romanian fertility clinic Sabyc.

Failure to observe the new rules will be punished with three to ten years imprisonment.

According to a European Parliament resolution of 2008, infertility is acknowledged by the World Health Organization and can have severe consequences, like depression. The resolution also stipulates that the infertility rate keeps growing and has affected nearly 15% of couples so far. The European Parliament informed on its website that it called on EU member states to guarantee people' universal access to infertility treatments.

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