What are the legal considerations for emergency IVF?
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Gregory Dolin, M.D., J.D. John M. Olin Fellow in Law
Oncofertility Consortium
Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University
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As is true with any medical procedure, Emergency IVF, generally speaking, adult patients, patients who are of the age of majority, 18 or 21, in most states it is 18, can freely consent to the procedures that they want to take on. Emergency IVF is certainly not an exception. So, in that sense I don’t think there is really anything different between Emergency IVF and regular IVF and any other fertility treatments.
But of course, as with regular IVF, what should really be of interest to adults at least, is what happens afterwards. If a woman goes through Emergency IVF, gets her eggs fertilized, freezes and stores embryos and then there may be some issues that come up afterward. It may be divorce or death of one of the partners or her own death…What’s the disposition of those embryos? Again, it's not really different from Regular IVF but that is where the bulk of legal, and in some ways moral issues are for adult patients.