There can be no starker contrast in egg donation than between Austria, where it is forbidden, and Israel, where it is encouraged to the extent that some Israeli women go abroad in order to obtain these precious reproductive cells. There are grave ethical issues in some of the transactions involved, which may fall out with the definition of a gift. The ESHRE taskforce on cross-border reproductiv...

The phenomenon of dart shooting in several species of land snails has still not been explained. We were interested in whether the dart can function as a nuptial gift of calcium, as previously proposed. Donating calcium would increase the fitness of the offspring and thereby result in a higher reproductive success for the donor. We confirmed in Helix aspersa that the developing embryo takes up c...

Monozygotic 24-year-old twins presented with discordant ovarian function. One had had premature ovarian failure at the age of 14 years, whereas her sister had normal ovaries and three naturally conceived children. After unsuccessful egg-donation therapy, the sterile twin received a transplant of ovarian cortical tissue from her sister by means of a minilaparotomy. Within three months after tran...

The International Committee for Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technology's 7th World Report for the year 2000 analyzes wide variations in live and multiple birth rates from 49 countries and six regions by type of assisted reproductive technology, age, number of embryos transferred, and multiple births. More than 460,157 procedures resulted in delivery rate per aspiration for conventional in ...

Background: Controversy surrounding disclosure among the recipients of assisted reproductive donation procedures is escalating worldwide, whereas little research has been conducted in this area .The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of infertile women undergoing assisted reproductive donation procedures in relation to their decision for disclosure. Materials and M...

Findings are presented of a study of families created through surrogacy arrangements. Forty-two surrogacy families were compared with 51 egg-donation families and 80 natural-conception families on standardized interview and questionnaire measures of the psychological well-being of the parents, the quality of parent-child relationships, and infant temperament. The differences that were identifie...

For centuries a woman who bore a child was clearly the birth mother of that child: mater est quam gestatio demonstrat. However, this relationship is no longer unequivocal. The possibility of embryo transfer or egg donation separates biological motherhood into genetic and gestational components. With the announcement in 1997 of the live birth of the first cloned adult mammal using differentiated...

introduction: organ donation is one of the surviving procedures which can increase the life expectancy of end-stage patients. inappropriate beliefs and attitude of individuals to organ donation, their poor knowledge, and the socio-economic level are one of the most important barriers for organ donation. therefore, here knowledge and attitude levels among relatives of trauma patients regarding o...