Aggregated News
The RCMP have launched an unprecedented investigation of a fertility-treatment consultant, citing alleged violations of laws that ban the buying and selling of sperm, eggs and the services of surrogate mothers.
Officers raided the eastern Ontario office of Canadian Fertility Consultants last week, and sources in the industry say the business has been effectively shut down, leaving prospective parents and surrogate mothers brought together by the agency in the lurch.
The raid appears to be the first under eight-year-old federal legislation governing the fertility industry, which critics say has been all but ineffective in the face of widespread evidence of black-market trade in egg, sperm and surrogates.
“The shocker is that something finally happened,” said Dr. Carl Laskin, past president of the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society. “I think this is absolutely a wake-up call.”
Corporal Cathie Glenn, an RCMP spokeswoman, confirmed that offices of the company in Brighton, Ont., 150 kilometres east of Toronto, were searched last Tuesday in an investigation of alleged contraventions of the Assisted Human Reproduction Act and the Criminal Code. Any possible charges could be...
Officers raided the eastern Ontario office of Canadian Fertility Consultants last week, and sources in the industry say the business has been effectively shut down, leaving prospective parents and surrogate mothers brought together by the agency in the lurch.
The raid appears to be the first under eight-year-old federal legislation governing the fertility industry, which critics say has been all but ineffective in the face of widespread evidence of black-market trade in egg, sperm and surrogates.
“The shocker is that something finally happened,” said Dr. Carl Laskin, past president of the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society. “I think this is absolutely a wake-up call.”
Corporal Cathie Glenn, an RCMP spokeswoman, confirmed that offices of the company in Brighton, Ont., 150 kilometres east of Toronto, were searched last Tuesday in an investigation of alleged contraventions of the Assisted Human Reproduction Act and the Criminal Code. Any possible charges could be...