The Audacity Of Dishonesty

This past year has seen the worst of times for the assisted reproductive technology community. In my sixteen years or practice in this field, I have never been more disillusioned or pessimistic about this industry. The year began with the OctoMom debacle and is ending with numerous surrogate and egg donor programs shuttering their doors and disappearing with client trust funds. Of course, in between we had the SurroGenesis and B Coming scandals. All in all, the worst year ever for Intended Parents, Surrogate and Egg Donors who had to grapple with the embezzlement of funds to the abrupt end of any dream of having a child.

So the depths that some of these agencies will sink to should not have come as any surprise to me as I reviewed documents from a potential client contemplating suing a surrogate agency that allegedly embezzled funds. The documents I had the misfortune to review were replete with the all-too standard canards and misrepresentations. What was particularly galling was that this agency insisted that their client deposit $8,900 for legal representation, $9,900 for court proceedings and $41,000 for medical procedures. The problems? Well, since when has a single IVF cycle ever been estimated…