A call for institutional policies on postmortem sperm retrieval

摘要

Postmortem sperm retrieval (PMSR) raises significant ethical and legal concerns, including issues of implied consent, debates regarding ownership and the designation of sperm as property, controversy involving the inclusion of sperm retrieval as a part of organ donation, and conflict over the rights of inheritance for offspring (1). A lack of consensus exists in regards to the use of PMSR on national, international, and institutional levels. Tash et al. (2) in 2003 reported on the benefits of establishing institutional guidelines to simplify the issues surrounding PMSR. The implementation of these guidelines stemmed from four considerations: [1] issues of consent, [2] medical contraindications, [3] resource availability, and [4] a 1-year waiting period for bereavement and recipient evaluation. The use of institutional guidelines, in this case, resulted in fewer postmortem retrievals performed and also offered a framework for decision making surrounding this procedure (2).