ORIGINAL ARTICLE The validity of contracts to dispose of frozen embryos

The widespread abandonment of frozen embryos by the gamete providers or intentional parents urgently demands a solution. Most centres react by requiring patients to enter a prior agreement gov-erning the future disposition of their embryos in all foreseeable circumstances. These dispositional directives are inappropriate and self defeating in the event of contingencies in which the patients remain competent to execute an updated directive. Internal and external changes may invalidate the prior directive by altering the situation as represented by the couple at the initiation of treatment to such an extent that it no longer corresponds with the actual situation at the time of the execution of the dis-position. The prior agreement should only be considered binding if the agreement among the partners on a specific option was a material condition for one of the partners to start treatment. Reproduction is an important and central part of a person’slife plan. Control over one’s reproductive capacities istherefore a crucial element of a person’s autonomy. This control includes both a right to reproduce and a right not to reproduce. These rights are expressed in the general accept-ance of the gamete providers or intentional parents as the pri-mary decision makers about embryos resulting from infertil-ity treatment. In most centres around the world, it became standard practice to ask patients to sign a consent form in which they indicate what should be done with the frozen supernumerary embryos when these are no longer needed for their own reproduction. This practice partly developed because of the remarkable fact that a considerable number of the embryos are abandoned by the gamete providers or inten-tional parents. As a consequence of conflicts between the intentional parents and the fertility centre and between the partners themselves, questions were raised about the validity of these contracts