CAREANDSELFLOVE

There is a moment in modern reproduction that still sounds like science fiction, even though it now happens quietly at kitchen tables.

A woman places her passport beside a box of fertility medication. On her laptop, one clinic says she is too old for publicly funded treatment. Another has an eighteen-month donor waiting list. A third—two countries and one budget airline away—offers an egg donor match within ten days, a “premium embryo package” and a success rate high enough to make hope feel almost mathematical.

There is a countdown beside the consultation button.

Three places left this month.

She is not planning a holiday. She is trying to become a mother before another birthday, another failed cycle or another policy change closes the door.

This is the moment when hope acquires a boarding pass.

I keep returning to that image because it captures what the phrase fertility tourism often conceals. It sounds light, almost recreational, as if people are comparing hotel pools and IVF laboratories in the same browser session. In reality, many are not travelling toward luxury. They are travelling away from waiting lists, discrimination, unaffordable treatment, legal restrictions or the feeling that time is running out.

Sometimes crossing a border is the most rational, empowering decision available. It can connect someone with excellent doctors, a well-regulated laboratory, an appropriate donor program or treatment that should never have been denied at home.

But sometimes the border does something else. It divides responsibility so thoroughly that no single clinic, agency, regulator, doctor or legal system remains accountable for the complete journey.

That is where reproduction begins to resemble the Wild West.

I want to be precise about what I mean. I am not suggesting that foreign fertility clinics are inherently reckless or that domestic treatment is automatically safer. “Abroad” is not a medical standard. A clinic in another country may be more experienced, more transparent and more evidence-based than the one down the road.

The Wild West is not a place on the map.

It is the space between the maps.

It appears when the treatment is legal in one country but its consequences are uncertain in another. It appears when a clinic reports “success” without revealing whether that means a positive test or a live birth. It appears when a donor is described as anonymous even though consumer DNA databases may make anonymity impossible. It appears when an agency coordinates the transaction but no one clearly coordinates the risk.

And, perhaps most dangerously, it appears when a person under extraordinary emotional pressure is treated as an ordinary consumer making an ordinary purchase.

Why is fertility tourism becoming the Wild West of reproduction?

Fertility tourism—more accurately called cross-border reproductive care—is becoming a regulatory Wild West because patients can move between countries more easily than medical records, consumer protections, donor information and parental rights can.

The treatment may involve several jurisdictions, yet no single authority necessarily supervises the entire path from hormonal stimulation to embryo storage, pregnancy, birth and legal parenthood. Clinics may also use incompatible success measures, sell optional procedures ahead of the evidence and leave patients to arrange their own emergency or follow-up care.

What concerns me most is not simply that regulations differ. Different countries will always make different ethical and political choices. The deeper problem is that patients are often expected to discover those differences only after they have already paid, started medication or created embryos.

No one can say exactly how large the global fertility-travel market has become. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine notes that a precise count remains unavailable because there is no robust international reporting system. I find that absence telling: reproduction has become globally mobile, but the systems designed to track safety and outcomes remain overwhelmingly national.

“Fertility tourism” is a useful keyword—and an uncomfortable description

I use the phrase fertility tourism because people search for it and immediately understand its general meaning. Still, I do not particularly like it.

Tourism implies leisure, flexibility and a large menu of voluntary choices. A person seeking treatment abroad may have none of those things. She may be there because her home country does not treat single women, because donor eggs are unavailable, because a same-sex relationship excludes her from public funding or because another domestic IVF cycle would cost more than she can raise.

Clinicians and researchers increasingly use the term cross-border reproductive care, or CBRC. It can include IVF, donor eggs, donor sperm, embryo donation, fertility preservation, preimplantation genetic testing and treatment connected with international surrogacy.

ASRM groups the main motivations into four broad areas: access, cost, regulation, and privacy or cultural comfort. In real life, I doubt these categories remain neatly separate. A patient may choose a destination because it is cheaper, but also because donor treatment is available sooner and because the clinic communicates in her language.

I think reproductive exile may sometimes describe the experience more honestly than reproductive tourism. Not every person who travels is exiled, of course. But when domestic law, cost or discrimination leaves no realistic route to treatment, crossing a border does not feel like shopping. It feels like being pushed out of one system and invited into another.

The invitation may be genuine. It may also be commercial.

Often, it is both.

Why fertility travel is becoming so difficult to ignore

Infertility is not a rare private tragedy. The World Health Organization estimates that approximately one in six adults experiences infertility during their lifetime. WHO also identifies major inequalities in access to safe, affordable and effective care.

In 2025, WHO issued its first global infertility guideline. It called for a progressive, evidence-based approach to treatment, greater financial protection and ongoing psychosocial support. I consider that important because international fertility travel is often presented as a lifestyle trend when it may actually be evidence of a health system failing its patients.

The difference between being eligible and excluded can be geographically tiny. Across Europe, laws and funding rules vary according to age, relationship status, sexual orientation, diagnosis and the type of gametes required. The European Atlas of Fertility Treatment Policies compares 49 countries and territories and documents large differences in access, donor treatment, funding and legal protection.

I do not find it surprising that people travel. I would find it more surprising if they did not.

They may go abroad because:

• IVF is significantly cheaper;
• donor eggs or sperm are available without a long wait;
• domestic funding has restrictive age or diagnosis rules;
• treatment is denied to single people or LGBTQ+ families;
• a particular procedure is prohibited at home;
• repeated failed cycles have damaged trust in local treatment;
• a foreign clinic appears more specialized;
• an agency can coordinate treatment, accommodation and donation;
• treatment away from home offers privacy;
• biological time makes a distant appointment feel safer than a local waiting list.

Many of these are valid reasons. Some represent genuine autonomy. Others reveal domestic injustice. The difficulty is that a reasonable reason for travelling does not automatically make every option offered at the destination reasonable.

One reproductive journey can contain several different rulebooks

I believe this is the central fact patients need to understand: international fertility treatment is not one service delivered by one institution.

It is a chain.

The foreign doctor may design the protocol. A local clinic may perform scans. A pharmacy in another jurisdiction may supply medication. A separate bank may provide sperm or eggs. An external laboratory may conduct genetic testing. An agency may control communication. A home-country obstetrician may later manage the pregnancy.

Each participant sees a section of the journey. The patient is often the only person expected to see—and connect—the whole thing.

When I look at this chain, I do not see a holiday package. I see a system of medical, legal and informational custody.

A polished coordinator can make it feel seamless. But convenience is not the same as accountability.

The first Wild West problem: The treatment may be regulated, but the journey is not

People sometimes ask, “Is IVF regulated in that country?” It is an important question, but it is too small.

A clinic may be licensed. Its laboratory may meet national standards. The doctor may be highly qualified. None of that tells the patient whether her home country will recognize donor arrangements, stored embryos, parental status or a surrogacy-related birth.

A domestic regulator normally has no authority over a clinic abroad. Meanwhile, the destination regulator may focus only on what occurs inside its own borders.

ASRM makes this gap unusually visible. Its ethics opinion states that destination-country physicians must follow local medical and informed-consent standards, but they are not automatically responsible for researching the legal or practical difficulties a foreign patient may encounter after returning home. Patients are therefore encouraged to obtain specialist legal advice in all relevant jurisdictions.

In ordinary language, “legal here” does not mean “legally uncomplicated for you.”

I would want that sentence above every international fertility contract.

The problem is not always lawlessness. Sometimes there are too many laws, each answering a different question. The clinic may know that the procedure is permitted. The agency may know how to arrange travel. The intended parent may assume someone has checked what happens afterward.

That assumption is where the gap opens.

The second problem: Success rates speak different dialects

A clinic advertises an 80% success rate.

What does that mean?

A positive pregnancy test? An ultrasound showing a gestational sac? Pregnancy after an embryo transfer? Live birth per transfer? Cumulative live birth after several transfers? Does the number include patients who began medication but never reached retrieval? Does it combine younger donor eggs with older patients using their own eggs?

I have learned to distrust any fertility percentage that arrives without its denominator.

A number can be technically accurate and still lead a patient toward the wrong conclusion. A clinic does not need to fabricate results. It can simply select the most flattering outcome, patient group, time period or calculation.

A study examining 361 websites belonging to U.S. fertility clinics found substantial gaps in adherence to professional advertising guidance. Approximately one third displayed success statistics directly, only about half of those used current statistics, and full compliance with guidance for presenting additional outcome data was low.

That study did not evaluate the entire international market, and I would not use it to accuse every clinic of manipulation. I use it to make a narrower point: even within a relatively developed reporting system, a clinic website is still marketing.

When comparing clinics, I would request:

• live-birth rates rather than positive pregnancy rates;
• results for the relevant age group;
• separate data for own eggs and donor eggs;
• the rate per cycle started or intended retrieval;
• inclusion of cancelled cycles;
• cumulative rates with a clearly stated time period;
• multiple-birth rates;
• independent registry reporting or audit where available.

I would also pay attention to how the clinic reacts. A trustworthy doctor should be able to explain why a number cannot predict an individual outcome.

A salesperson may simply repeat the number more confidently.

The third problem: IVF add-ons transform uncertainty into a menu

Standard IVF is often only the beginning of the quotation.

Around it sits a growing menu of optional tests, laboratory techniques, medications and complementary treatments. The names can sound precise and sophisticated: time-lapse imaging, assisted hatching, immune protocols, embryo glue, endometrial testing, advanced selection, personalized implantation support.

Some add-ons may be useful for particular medical indications. My concern begins when possibility is marketed as probability.

ESHRE’s good-practice recommendations explain that the innovative nature of reproductive medicine, combined with patients’ intense motivation, has opened the door to widespread use of supplementary procedures that often carry additional costs. Its working group produced 42 recommendations covering diagnostic tests, clinical treatment and laboratory add-ons.

The emotional logic is powerful.

After an unsuccessful cycle, repeating the same plan can feel like doing nothing. Adding a new procedure feels active. It creates a story in which the previous failure had a discoverable cause and the next cycle contains the missing solution.

I understand why that story is comforting.

But comfort is not clinical evidence.

Whenever an add-on is recommended, I would ask:

1. Does it improve live-birth rates or only an intermediate result?
2. Has it been studied in patients with my age, diagnosis and treatment history?
3. What is the quality of the evidence?
4. What are the physical and financial risks?
5. Is this standard care, experimental care or part of research?
6. Does the clinic or doctor benefit financially when I accept it?
7. What would you recommend if the add-on were free?
8. What would you recommend if purchasing it meant I could not afford another standard cycle?

That final question matters to me. A procedure may be relatively low risk and still be harmful if it consumes money, time or emotional capacity that could have been used more effectively.

Hope is not informed consent

Fertility clinics often communicate with people at a point of extraordinary vulnerability. That does not make patients irrational. It means the context of the decision is different from buying an ordinary service.

There may be grief from previous losses. There may be shame, relationship strain, ageing anxiety or pressure from family. There may be a sense that this decision is the last available door.

I do not think consent is truly informed when a patient is given information but no psychological room in which to use it.

A clinic can technically disclose risks while emotionally steering the patient toward a purchase. A coordinator can mention that success is not guaranteed and then immediately return to photographs, testimonials and urgency. A contract can contain every required clause and still arrive after the deposit deadline has begun to feel irreversible.

For me, meaningful consent requires more than a signature. It requires:

• enough time to think;
• a complete price before commitment;
• understandable evidence;
• a real discussion of alternatives;
• permission to refuse an add-on;
• access to independent advice;
• no punishment for asking difficult questions;
• no artificial urgency unrelated to medical timing.

I would be particularly cautious when doubt is treated as negativity. A patient who asks about failure, complications or refunds is not “manifesting the wrong outcome.” She is doing the work the system should have made easier.

The cheapest IVF cycle may not be the cheapest reproductive plan

Cross-border fertility treatment can be genuinely more affordable. I do not want to minimize that advantage. In countries where treatment is mostly self-funded, international care may be the only financially possible route.

But I would never compare the headline cycle prices alone.

The real calculation may include:

• medication;
• scans and blood tests at home;
• flights and repeated travel;
• accommodation;
• anaesthesia;
• egg or sperm preparation;
• donor compensation and agency fees;
• genetic testing and counselling;
• freezing and storage;
• embryo shipping;
• translation;
• legal advice;
• future transfers;
• unpaid leave;
• emergency medical care;
• a second trip after a cancelled transfer.

A low advertised price can operate like a doorway. Once treatment begins, each additional cost is presented as too small to justify abandoning everything already invested.

This is a classic sunk-cost trap, but the emotional stakes are far higher than in an ordinary purchase. The money already spent becomes attached to injections taken, embryos created and hope revived.

There is also a medical cost hidden inside travel efficiency. When flights and accommodation are expensive, transferring two embryos may sound more practical than returning for another transfer. Yet multiple pregnancies increase risks for both the pregnant person and babies.

ASRM notes that cross-border treatments have been associated with higher multiple-pregnancy rates and that the later obstetric and neonatal costs may be carried by families or home-country health systems.

A 2025 retrospective study at a single U.S. hospital compared 23 cross-border IVF pregnancies with 72 domestic IVF pregnancies. It found a higher rate of hypertensive disorders in the cross-border group, while most other maternal and neonatal outcomes were comparable. I would be very careful with this finding: the sample was small and cannot prove that treatment abroad caused the difference. What it does show is how limited the evidence remains and why larger studies are necessary.

The honest conclusion is not “IVF abroad is dangerous.”

It is: we do not yet track international treatment well enough to understand every risk.

Donor anonymity is becoming a promise medicine cannot keep

A donor program is often presented through immediate questions: How quickly can a match be found? What are the donor’s physical characteristics? Has she been screened? How many eggs are guaranteed?

I would add questions that belong to the future child.

Who is the donor? Can her medical history be updated? How many genetic siblings may exist? Can those siblings find one another? Who keeps the records? What happens if the clinic closes?

Rules differ between countries. A donor may be identifiable, identity-release or legally nonidentified. Limits may apply per child, pregnancy or family. A donor bank may export material into several jurisdictions whose registers do not communicate.

Consumer DNA testing has also made the old promise of anonymity increasingly fragile. Even when the donor never submits DNA, a relative may do so. Genetic connections can be reconstructed through cousins, siblings or family trees.

ESHRE recommends that intended parents be informed that donor-conceived people may identify donors or genetic relatives through direct-to-consumer DNA testing. It also warns that official limits on the number of offspring or families may not always prevent those limits from being exceeded.

I do not believe intended parents should be shamed for choosing donor conception within imperfect systems. But I do believe clinics should stop using “anonymous” as though it describes a permanent biological reality.

Today, it may describe only a legal arrangement at the moment of treatment.

Before using donor eggs, sperm or embryos abroad, I would ask:

• What is the donor’s legal status?
• What information can the child access?
• At what age can information be requested?
• Is there a national donor register?
• How long are records legally preserved?
• What happens if the clinic or bank closes?
• Can medical information be updated later?
• Does the family limit include international exports?
• Who monitors the donor’s use across different clinics?
• What counselling is available for intended parents?
• What support is offered for early, age-appropriate disclosure to the child?

The decision does not end at pregnancy. In a meaningful sense, it begins there.

International surrogacy reveals the legal vacuum most clearly

International surrogacy is where medical travel, contract law, family law, immigration and human rights collide.

A person may be recognized as a legal parent in the country of birth but not automatically at home. The surrogate may be considered the legal mother under one system, while another recognizes the intended parents. Citizenship, passports, birth registration and parental orders can become separate processes.

The Hague Conference on Private International Law spent years examining cross-border recognition of parentage, including parentage following international surrogacy. Its working group concluded in 2025, but member governments decided in March 2026 not to proceed to the convention-drafting stage at that time. I see this as a striking indication of how unresolved the international position.

The child’s legal position should never depend on discovering a conflict after birth.

But parentage is only one part of the ethical question.

I would also want to know:

• Does the surrogate have her own lawyer?
• Is that lawyer genuinely independent of the agency?
• Who selects her doctor?
• Who controls medical decisions during pregnancy?
• Can she refuse testing, reduction, induction or caesarean delivery?
• What insurance covers complications?
• What happens if she requires long-term care?
• Is compensation transparent and protected?
• What happens financially after a miscarriage?
• Does support continue after birth?
• Can she withdraw from an unsafe situation without losing everything?

Economic inequality does not automatically mean that a surrogate has no agency. At the same time, calling an arrangement a “choice” does not prove it is free from pressure.

I use a simple test: Does the person assuming the bodily risk have independent power, or merely contractual obligations?

If the intended parents’ comfort is carefully protected while the surrogate’s rights remain vague, the system is not balanced.

The forgotten risk: Continuity of care

Fertility treatment does not always stay inside the schedule.

Medication doses may need rapid adjustment. Ovarian hyperstimulation can worsen after retrieval. Bleeding, infection, ovarian torsion or ectopic pregnancy may require urgent assessment. Early pregnancy care may be delivered by someone who did not prescribe the protocol and cannot access the complete record.

A clinic may provide excellent scheduled care and still have a weak plan for everything that happens after the patient boards the flight home.

ASRM notes that people returning from cross-border reproductive treatment may bring little or no documentation. That can create significant difficulties for clinicians who must continue treatment or manage complications.

Before taking the first medication, I would want four names—not four departments:

1. Who performs and reviews monitoring at home?
2. Who is authorized to change the protocol?
3. Who answers urgent questions after hours?
4. Which local service will treat a complication?

“Message us on WhatsApp” is useful communication.

It is not an emergency plan.

The coordinator may feel like an advocate without being one

A skilled coordinator can make international treatment dramatically easier. She may translate medical language, organize scans, explain travel dates and respond when the patient feels completely overwhelmed.

I would not dismiss that role. Good coordination matters.

But emotional availability can blur financial and professional boundaries.

The coordinator may be employed by the clinic. A medical-travel website may rank paying partners. A patient ambassador may receive a referral fee. An influencer may receive free treatment. A donor or surrogacy agency may recommend lawyers who depend on the agency for future business.

The person who feels most supportive may not have a professional duty to act solely in the patient’s interest.

I would ask every intermediary:

Who pays you, and what changes financially if I choose another clinic, procedure, donor program or agency?

Disclosure does not automatically indicate a conflict has caused harm. Refusal to disclose is the warning.

I would also separate three kinds of information:

• medical advice should come from a licensed clinician;
• legal advice should come from an independent lawyer familiar with all relevant jurisdictions;
• logistical guidance may come from a coordinator or agency.

When one person appears to provide all three, I become cautious.

The system can make risk disappear by moving it to someone else

The public story of fertility travel normally follows the intended parent. But reproduction may involve several bodies and several forms of risk.

The patient may undergo stimulation and retrieval. An egg donor may undergo those procedures instead. A surrogate may assume the risks of pregnancy and birth. A home-country hospital may manage complications. A donor-conceived person may later inherit the consequences of missing records or uncontrolled sibling numbers.

The cheapest package for the buyer may remain expensive for someone the advertising barely shows.

This does not mean that all paid donation or surrogacy is exploitation. I resist conclusions that erase women’s ability to make complex choices about their own bodies.

But I also resist the idea that payment alone proves fairness.

The 2018 systematic review of cross-border reproductive care described consequences not only for patients but also for children, donors, gestational carriers, health professionals and destination communities. That wider lens is essential because treatment cannot be evaluated only by whether the intended parent becomes pregnant.

My fairness test is this:

Can every person taking a bodily risk receive independent advice, understand the agreement, refuse a recommendation without retaliation and obtain appropriate care when something goes wrong?

If the clinic or agency cannot answer, the low price is not the only cost that remains hidden.

The five-file test I would use before starting treatment abroad

Reassuring conversations are not enough. A safe international treatment plan should create portable, usable documentation.

1. The medical file

This should contain the diagnosis, test results, protocol, medication names and doses, allergies, monitoring schedule, retrieval notes, embryo-transfer notes, embryology report, aftercare instructions and emergency plan.

2. The evidence file

This should explain why every procedure or add-on is recommended, what outcome it may improve, whether evidence applies to your clinical group, what remains uncertain and what alternatives exist.

3. The money file

This should include a fully itemized price, medication, donor or agency costs, refund conditions, cancellation rules, storage, future transfers, travel and realistic emergency expenses.

4. The legal file

This should address consent, embryo disposition, donor status, contracts, legal parentage, citizenship, birth registration, enforceability and the laws of every country involved.

5. The future-child file

This should include donor information, screening, identity-release rules, record-retention policies, family or offspring limits, future medical updates and a clear route through which the donor-conceived person can later request information.

If one of these files exists only as a verbal promise, I would treat it as missing.

Green flags, yellow flags and reasons to pause

No online checklist can guarantee that a clinic is safe. Still, I believe a clinic reveals a great deal through the way it responds to uncertainty.

One of the strongest green flags is not confidence.

It is intellectual honesty.

A trustworthy clinic should be able to say, “We do not know,” “This may not help you,” or “The less expensive option is reasonable.”

Twelve questions I would send before paying a deposit

I would send these questions in writing and keep the answers.

1. Which authority currently licenses the clinic and laboratory?
2. How can I independently verify the licence?
3. What is the live-birth rate for patients in my age group using my intended egg source?
4. Is that rate calculated per transfer, retrieval or cycle started?
5. Are cancelled cycles included?
6. Why is every proposed test, medication or add-on appropriate for my diagnosis?
7. What are the risks, evidence limitations and lower-cost alternatives?
8. How many embryos do you recommend transferring, and what is your multiple-birth rate?
9. Who monitors me at home, and who can change my medication?
10. What happens if I develop a complication at night or after returning home?
11. What is included and excluded from the complete price?
12. If donation or surrogacy is involved, who independently protects the other person and what rights will the future child have?

I would not judge the clinic only by whether it answers yes or no. I would judge the clarity, patience and specificity of the response.

A sales team can answer quickly.

A responsible medical team answers precisely.

What safer fertility travel would actually require

I do not believe the answer is to close borders.

Blocking international care could trap people inside discriminatory, unaffordable or medically limited systems. It could also push less visible arrangements further underground.

The better answer is to regulate the complete journey.

Safer cross-border reproductive care would include:

• standardized reporting based on live birth;
• comparable denominators and age categories;
• international tracking of serious adverse events;
• a traceable chain of custody for gametes and embryos;
• clear donor-screening and counselling standards;
• cross-border donor-family limits;
• long-term preservation of donor information;
• transparent advertising and referral fees;
• independent support for donors and surrogates;
• evidence standards for IVF add-ons;
• mandatory handover records;
• a named follow-up clinician;
• cross-border complaint mechanisms;
• legal protection of parentage and nationality;
• meaningful information rights for donor-conceived people;
• better public funding so international travel is a choice rather than an escape.

WHO’s recent infertility guideline points toward care that is evidence-based, financially protected and psychologically supported. I think that is the right direction. The goal should not be to train distressed patients to become expert shoppers in a global hope market. The goal should be to create a system in which they do not have to gamble with fragmented accountability in order to pursue a family.

The question I would ask instead of “Can this clinic get me pregnant?”

“Can they get me pregnant?” is understandable. It may be the only question that feels important after years of trying.

But pregnancy is not the complete outcome.

I would ask:

Who carries each risk—and who remains responsible if the plan stops working?

Who manages an unexpected medical problem? Who investigates a laboratory error? Who preserves donor information? Who protects the person providing eggs or carrying the pregnancy? Who pays when the package expands? Who recognizes legal parenthood? Who answers a donor-conceived adult eighteen years from now?

Fertility treatment compresses time. Age matters. Cycle dates matter. Donor availability changes. After repeated disappointment, paying a deposit can feel like movement, and movement can feel like hope.

That is exactly why I believe the decision deserves more space, not less.

Caution is not the opposite of hope.

Good caution prevents hope from being used as leverage.

The border is not the danger—the gaps are

Fertility tourism is not the Wild West simply because people travel or because countries have different laws.

It becomes the Wild West when responsibility disappears between those laws.

The clinic points to the agency. The agency points to the contract. The destination regulator points to its national limits. The home doctor points to missing records. The legal systems point to one another. And the patient—already carrying the physical, financial and emotional weight of treatment—is left carrying the institutional risk as well.

I do not want to end with fear. Treatment abroad can be a thoughtful, ethical and life-changing choice. It can reduce costs, overcome discrimination, provide excellent care and make parenthood possible where domestic systems have failed.

But a plane ticket should not require a woman to become her own regulator, medical-record courier, evidence reviewer, emergency coordinator, consumer lawyer and international-parentage specialist.

The question is not whether fertility tourism is good or bad.

The question I would carry into every consultation is this:

Does the entire route protect every person it depends on—even if treatment fails, a complication occurs, a law changes or a future child asks for the truth?

If the answer is specific, documented and independently verifiable, the patient is not merely buying a beautiful promise.

She is making an informed decision.

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Editorial medical and legal note

This article is intended for education and general decision support. It does not provide personalized medical or legal advice. Fertility treatment, donor conception and surrogacy laws differ between jurisdictions and may change. Readers should consult appropriately licensed reproductive-medicine specialists and independent lawyers in every relevant country.

FAQ

Sources and inspirations

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• European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology Working Group on Reproductive Donation, Kirkman-Brown, J., Calhaz-Jorge, C., Dancet, E. A. F., Lundin, K., Martins, M., Tilleman, K., Thorn, P., Vermeulen, N., & Frith, L. (2022). Good practice recommendations for information provision for those involved in reproductive donation. Human Reproduction Open.
• Fertility Europe, & European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights. (2025). European Atlas of Fertility Treatment Policies 2024.
• Hague Conference on Private International Law. (2026). Parentage / Surrogacy Project.
• Lundin, K., Bentzen, J. G., Bozdag, G., Ebner, T., Harper, J., Le Clef, N., Moffett, A., Norcross, S., Polyzos, N. P., Rautakallio-Hokkanen, S., Sfontouris, I., Sermon, K., Vermeulen, N., Pinborg, A., & ESHRE Add-ons Working Group. (2023). Good practice recommendations on add-ons in reproductive medicine. Human Reproduction.
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