Michigan bills to prevent fraud in fertility treatment received a hearing Tuesday before a state House committee.
The package of legislation would make it a felony to lie about a sample donor’s identity or educational and family medical background.
Kara Rubinstein Deyerin, with the group Right to Know, said federal laws only require testing samples for communicable diseases.
“There’s no requirement to genetically test gametes, no requirement to verify donor information, like medical history, education, or background, and there’s no way to ensure a limit on how many families are created from one donor,” she told the House Families and Veterans Committee Tuesday during testimony.
Under the bills, a donor who knowingly lies could face five years in prison and a $50,000 fine.
Rubinstein Deyerin and other supporters of the legislation argue Michigan is behind the curve when it comes to creating new protections for families seeking medical help with having a baby. According to Right to Know, over a dozen other states have some sort of fertility fraud legislation on the books.
Not everyone who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting, however, was sold on the bills.
Michigan Fertility Alliance founder Stephanie Jones opposed them, saying Michigan’s bills are both significantly longer than other states’ and too strict. She called them “dangerously vague.”
“Under this bill package, a physician would be criminally liable if a donor fails to accurately report the medical history of their first-, second-, or third-degree relatives. That’s almost an impossible standard,” Jones said.
Package sponsors, however, stressed the bills would require intent to lie in order to sustain charges.
State Representative John Roth (R-Interlochen) said prosecutors won’t charge people for making innocent mistakes.
“They’re going to go after the people that it’s egregious and it’s obviously a blatant activity,” Roth said.
This is the third-straight session similar bills have come up in Michigan. They were introduced in response to cases of past doctors who used their own samples without a fertility patient’s knowledge.
The package would make that a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a $100,000 fine.
Jones, however, called that type of behavior “a relic of the past.”
“Modern medicine is not practiced the way it was 30, 40, 50 years ago in terms of how we are doing assisted reproduction,” Jones said.
Tuesday’s meeting ended with the bills remaining in committee. Still, Roth said he hopes to see them get a vote in his chamber next week.
