The Octuplet Case--Why More Regulation Is Not Likely (Essay‪)‬

In vitro fertilization and assisted reproductive technologies, or ARTs, have always posed a regulatory conundrum. They've been hugely successful (52,000 births from 152,000 IVF cycles in 2005) and are firmly established as the treatment of choice for many kinds of infertility. (1) But over the years there has been a steady drip of ethical lapses, from doctors who oversell their success rates to theft of eggs and embryos. A 1992 federal law arranges for accurate reporting of success rates and encourages accreditation of IVF laboratories, but there is no centralized licensing and control authority to enforce it (as exists, for example, in the United Kingdom) and thus few teeth to it. (2) The IVF industry argues that there is more regulation in place than meets the eye, citing the many federal and state laws that impinge on IVF practice in some way. (3) It also is active in developing ethical and practice guidelines, though it has little muscle to enforce them. Critics of the industry argue that it's like the wild west--anything goes if patients can pay, often to that patient's detriment. Yet these critics are remarkably silent on what specific form more regulation should take. The Bush-appointed President's Council on Bioethics was concerned enough to spend two years examining the field but found no reason to urge major regulatory intervention.