Like many cancer patients who explore fertility
preservation before cancer treatment, Adrienne Rathert didn’t have the luxury of much
time to mull over options. The lump on her back, after a series of laboratory analyses,
had been diagnosed as Ewing’s sarcoma, a cancer of the soft tissue. Her oncologist
wanted to begin aggressive chemotherapy as soon as possible.
Rathert, 28 at the time, hadn’t considered the possibility
of treatment-related infertility until her physician asked: Did she want to freeze some of
her eggs or, alternatively, some embryos just in case? Her live-in boyfriend was supportive;
so Rathert began hormonal injections immediately to stimulate egg production.
“I’ve always wanted to be pregnant,” she says.
Together, the couple met with an attorney to hammer out
the legal paperwork. In a spirit of egalitarianism, they settled upon joint access to
the embryos, including related parental rights and responsibilities. The night before
her eggs were extracted, though, Rathert recalls “really freaking out. I think I had doubts
about my relationship at the time. I think my gut feeling was there—I just ignored it.
I just went along with what made sense at the time.”
Attorneys and clinicians who work in the field of
fertility preservation relay similar stories about patients and couples wrestling
with reproductive and interpersonal complexities amid the time pressures and
emotional strain of a cancer diagnosis. The legal issues at stake not only vary
based on the fertility technique pursued, but also other factors, such as the state
in which the patient lives. Above all, they say, fertility preservation is
so cutting edge that the relevant case law hasn’t even begun to catch up.
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