Genes, Parents, And Assisted Reproductive Technologies: Arts, Mistakes, Sex, Race, & Law‪.‬

I. INTRODUCTION A true story: two infertile couples, Donna and Richard Fasano of Staten Island, New York, (1) and Deborah Perry-Rogers and Robert Rogers of Teaneck, New Jersey, (2) went to the In Vitro Fertility Center of New York, an in vitro fertilization [hereinafter IVF] clinic in Manhattan, for treatment on the same day in April 1998. Both couples were undergoing IVF procedures that created pre-embryos (3) ("test tube babies") with hopes of giving birth to their own babies. Due to a clinical error that caused a pre-embryo mix-up that day, (4) Donna Fasano was mistakenly impregnated with as many as six of the Rogerses' pre-embryos along with at least one of hers and her husband's pre-embroys. (5) Deborah Perry-Rogers was also implanted with pre-embryos on April 24, 1998, but all those pre-embryos were hers and her husband's. (6) Unfortunately, Perry-Rogers's pre-embryos did not implant in her womb. (7) A few weeks later, on May 28, 1998, after Donna Fasano knew she was pregnant with twins, the clinic notified both couple s of the mistake. The Rogerses attempted to learn who had their pre-embryos, but were unable to find out. The Fasanos, on the other hand, did not take any affirmative steps to identify either of their embryos' genetic parents during Mrs. Fasano's pregnancy or for several months after the children's birth. (8)