Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technology in Nigeria: An Urgent Need (Published)
Infertility is now a common medical problem in Nigeria. Statistics reveal that the rate of infertility in Nigeria is 30 %. Many couples and persons seeking to have children are finding it difficult, if not impossible. Thus there is a high resort to medical assistance in the form of Artificial Reproductive Technology (ART). Indeed, there has been a lot of development in ART and medical advances and inroads have been made in the field. No doubt, this has brought succour to many couples and persons seeking to become parents. However, the increase in the demand and use of ART has led to diverse uncensored and unregulated practices, abuse of medical procedure, reproduction tourism and baby factories. This raises a lot of ethical and legal issues like egg and sperm donation, the fate of unused gametes, providing ART services to Single Parents or Same sex parents, at present, there is no national law nor body regulating ART in Nigeria. This work, adopting a doctrinal approach, highlighted the Nigerian practice of ART and considered fundamental ethical and legal issues arising from the increased demand and use of ART in Nigeria and made recommendations on the effective regulation and practice of ART in Nigeria such as uniform national law, national ART regulating body, subsidizing the cost of ART services, among others.
Keywords: Infertility, Nigeria, children, reproductive technology