Authorities Are Stuck In the Scandal of Exported Embryos

Petru Zoltan The Ministry of Health, the Physicians Council and the Bucharest Prosecutor""s Office search for the culprits in the Global Art dealings regarding the sell abroad of ovules harvested from Romanian women. The investigation so far shows that serious infringement to the criminal law and deontology of the medical profession took place.
For the time being the Bucharest prosecutors are swamped in a legal maze of provisions that regulate donation of organs. It may be that they would arrive at a dead end, since Romanian law refers to donation and implant of organs and tissues, alone. But were does the ovule fit in the definition? Is it an organ or a piece of tissue?

The Physicians Council informed the Ministry of Health that physician Ioana Ghionescu who was harvesting the ovules from donors is a general practitioner, and not a trained gynecologist, which makes her a law offender.
Furthermore, sources from Physicians Council said that the Global Art clinic was not authorized to perform medical procedures.

The Ministry of Health holds data on a number of private clinics, all run by Israeli citizens, which engage in harvesting ovules from Romanian women.
One such clinic is Sabyc, against which the Ministry of Health filed a complaint with the Prosecutor s Office last fall. This clinic was at the center of a scandal in Israel in 2002, when the chief rabbi protested against fertilizing Jewish women with eggs harvested abroad.
A heated religious debate ensued.

Physician Miron Harry, head of the Sabyc Medical Center, said that no harvesting of ovules takes place in his clinic.
But a young woman, in her early twenties, exiting the center said that she will receive 250 dollars for such an ovule donation.
Furthermore, the young woman said that she has female friends who have the same kind of procedure performed on them.
She said that the doctor s point of view was that the wish a woman has to become a mother, be her Jewish or not, supercedes any legal provision.
Dr. Harry has his own practice in Israel, and he is due to leave Romania for a whole month, he said.