JBRA Assist. Reprod. 2017;21(3):161-162
EDITORIAL

doi: 10.5935/1518-0557.20170032

Single, successful lady is looking for... a baby

Vera Lúcia Raposo1,2

1Faculty of Law of Macao University, Macao, China
2Faculty of Law of Coimbra University, Coimbra, Portugal

In the 21st century, women may decide not to have children early enough for this claim to be successful. Alternatively, they may think about procreating in due time, but may not be able to find a suitable reproductive partner.
Many factors have contributed to these scenarios. New professional and academic challenges have opened wider horizons to women, and pregnancy, childbirth and parenting are not always compatible with the demands imposed by today's competitive work environment. Furthermore, new communitarian concepts have postponed the proper time to settle down and reproduce, including for males. However, men can have children until late in life, whereas women face a kind of 'expiring date' that prevents them from conceiving whenever they want to. As a result, many women fight against time, living on the wake of their biological clock.
Medicine and technology have not been oblivious to this new reality, and indeed scientific solutions have materialised. On the one hand, artificial reproductive techniques (ART) have allowed reproduction to take place without sex via the use of reproductive gametes, even from complete strangers (Ignovska, 2014) to whom the 'mother to be' is unrelated and does not want to be related. So, due to this technique women can actually become impregnated using the sperm of an anonymous donor. On the other hand, in more recent years the technique of oocyte vitrification has been developed (Chian et al., 2014), allowing female reproduction to occur late in life, including after menopause.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, reproduction is still a challenge for modern women, because the law has intervened in this discussion, and subsequently matters have not quite been so simple. Actually, many legal orders have forbidden both the use of reproductive techniques by single women and their use by older women.
The legal ban on single women is related to the utopian idea of the 'perfect family', almost as a materialisation of the Holy Trinity: father, mother and son. However, in today's world many different kinds of families coexist (as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development recognised some years ago; OECD, 2011). Thus, it seems naive to insist on just one family model.
In the European context, the most modern trend has been to allow all women to access reproductive techniques, regardless of their marital status and sexual orientation. This has been the legal solution in the Nordic countries, the UK, Spain and, since August 2016, Portugal.
That said, the existence of monoparental families created by means of anonymous donors has indeed raised a relevant and potentially concerning issue (Raposo, 2014): the right of a child to know its genetic and personal origin, usually known as the right to genetic and personal identity. This problem could be solved if the law waived the donor's anonymity and instead imposed a legal obligation to disclose his genetic profile. This would also be relevant to track other children from the same donor, thereby preventing incestuous relations, and cure eventual pathologies affecting a child by making it easier to ascertain the donor's biological composition. More than that, disclosure of the donor's identity could satisfy the inherent human curiosity to know one's genetic progenitor, even if this person is not legally, socially or personally considered to be the legal or 'real' father.
In what concerns late female reproduction, the legal imposition of an age limitation on a female's use of reproductive techniques has been grounded in the idea that late reproduction is potentially dangerous to both the child's and mother's health. Some have argued that late child birth may result in disabled children, abortions, miscarriages and maternal deaths (Schure et al., 2012). However, most of these conditions have actually been related to the oocyte's age by some scientists (Sauer et al., 1996). So, they can be prevented by using donated oocytes, donated embryos or even a woman's own oocytes cryopreserved at a younger age. They also can be caused by other factors, such as pre-existing diseases, obesity, tobacco use and other unsafe behaviour (Bernstein & Wiesemann, 2014), but curiously the law does not prevent women's access to ART based on any of these factors.
The classic argument suggesting that late childbirth results in early orphanhood has become irrelevant. Life expectancy has increased over the past few decades, and people can now live until an advanced old age. This leads to the conclusion that if the seventies are the new fifties for the purpose of life expectancy, the fifties should be the new thirties for reproductive purposes.
The laws on ART have generally been silent on the use of oocyte cryopreservation to extend fertility. Accordingly, in the absence of such a legal prohibition, we must conclude that this practice is allowed. Nevertheless, even when there is no express legal ban, when the time comes for a woman to use her cryopreserved oocytes she can actually face some legal challenges, based on her marital status (e.g., whenever the law requires a marriage, or at least a de facto relationship, it won't allow oocyte fertilisation if the woman is single) and/or her age (if a women has surpassed the legal age limit for using ART she can also be prevented from using her own oocytes for reproduction purposes) (Raposo, 2016).
The world has changed, and with it women's careers, education and social life. Science has also changed, and in doing so provided women with new possibilities. However, the law has not changed enough to support women's reproductive aspirations. Thus, if the charming prince does not shown up in time, the baby may not come either.

REFERENCES
Bernstein S, Wiesemann C. Should postponing motherhood via "social freezing" be legally banned? An ethical analysis. Laws. 2014;3:282-300.
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Chian RC, Wang Y, Li YR. Oocyte vitrification: advances, progress and future goals. J Assist Reprod Genet. 2014;31:411-20.
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Ignovska E. Sperm donors as assisters of reproduction in single women. Glob Bioeth. 2014;25:226-38.
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OECD. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Doing better for Families. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; 2011. [cited 2017 June 14]. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/47701118.pdf

Raposo VL. O direito à imortalidade. O exercício de direitos reprodutivos mediante técnicas de reprodução assistida e o estatuto jurídico do embrião in vitro. Coimbra: Almedina; 2014.

Raposo VL. Querido, congelei os ovócitos. In: Loureiro J, Barbosa C, Pereira AD. Direito da saúde - Estudos em homenagem ao Prof. Doutor Guilherme de Oliveira, Volume 4, Genética e procriação medicamente assistida. Coimbra: Almedina; 2016. p. 207-30.

Sauer MV, Paulson RJ, Lobo RA. Oocyte donation to women of advanced reproductive age: pregnancy results and obstetrical outcomes in patients 45 years and older. Hum Reprod. 1996;11:2540-3.
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Schure V, Voigt M, Schild RL, Hesse V, Carstensen M, Schneider KT, Straube S. Perinatal Risks in "Late Motherhood" Defined Based On Parity and Preterm Birth Rate - an analysis of the German Perinatal Survey (20th communication). Geburtshilfe Frauenheilkd. 2012;72:49-55.
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