Bay Area IVF Specialists Launch Outreach to Same-Sex Couples
SAN RAMON, Calif., April 3 /PRNewswire/ — The Reproductive Science Center of the Bay Area (RSC), one of California’s oldest and most prominent fertility practices, is launching a public-education campaign aimed at the gay and lesbian community in an effort to raise awareness of parenting options for same-sex couples.
The campaign follows a November 2006 report issued by the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) stating that fertility medical practices “should treat all requests for assisted reproduction equally without regard to marital status or sexual orientation.” (http://www.asrm.org/Media/Ethics/fertility_gaylesunmarried.pdf.)
“Achieving pregnancy can be an emotionally challenging journey for any couple,” said Dr. Susan P. Willman, Medical Director of RSC’s Orinda clinic. “Given Northern California’s sizeable gay and lesbian population, we felt it appropriate to direct some of our public education resources toward a community that may face fewer parenting options than heterosexual couples.”
Next month RSC launches a long-term awareness-raising program that includes a variety of public service announcements, community appearances and other communications.
“Our experience is that the concerns of prospective parents are pretty much the same regardless of marital status or sexual orientation,” Willman said. “Parenting is a natural human desire for a huge majority of people.”
In September the California Supreme Court began hearings on a case in which a San Diego lesbian patient, Guadalupe Benitez, was denied infertility treatment because of her doctors’ religious beliefs. This case thrust the issue of fertility for same-sex couples into the spotlight just as activists around the country began turning attention toward enacting legislation to ban adoption by same-sex couples.
About Reproductive Science Center
Established in 1983, the Reproductive Science Center of the San Francisco Bay Area was one of the earliest IVF facilities in the United States, begun just two years after the nation’s first successful IVF treatment. RSC was among the first in the United States to report a successful pregnancy from an egg donated from one woman to another for gestation and delivery, and was also responsible for the nation’s second successful transfer of a previously frozen embryo into a mother’s uterus. Today, RSC boasts a staff of six infertility physicians with a collective 85 years’ experience with offices in San Ramon, Orinda, San Jose, Fremont, Modesto, Brentwood, and Monterey. The Reproductive Science Center is a member of IntegraMed, a national network of 30 fertility centers in 95 locations across the United States. Nearly one in four IVF procedures in the United States is performed in an IntegraMed practice. For more information, visit http://www.rscbayarea.com/.
Reproductive Science Center
CONTACT: JoAnne Brian, Practice Development Mgr. of Reproductive ScienceCenter, +1-925-973-5008; or Bonnie Schwab or Ron King, both of VanguardCommunications, +1-877-382-2999 or +1-303-382-2999, for Reproductive ScienceCenter
Web site: http://www.rscbayarea.com/