Medicine and the Law

South African fertility clinics often include a provision in their consent forms that deals with the disposition of reproductive material (gametes and embryos) after a fertility patient's death. This practice is problematic as such a provision is not legally valid. If the clinic acts in pursuance of such a provision upon a fertility patient's death, the fertility clinic may be committing a civil wrong and a crime. Accordingly, consent forms should not include any provision that deals with the disposition of reproductive material after a fertility patient's death. Instead, to address the practical concern of keeping reproductive material cryopreserved without receiving payment, fertility clinics' storage agreements should use non-payment by fertility patients (or their successors in title) as the trigger event for the disposition of reproductive material. The importance of dealing with reproductive material in both its property rights dimension and its personality rights dimension is highlighted.