A US assisted conception clinic recently refused to help a homosexual male couple, both of whom were HIV-positive, by fertilising an ovum from a woman donor with the sperm of one of the two men and implanting it in a second woman who had agreed to carry the pregnancy. The men contested the decision on the grounds that there were no documented cases of HIV sero-conversion in recipients of gametes from HIV-positive donors, and that the woman was willing to carry the pregnancy. However, although the clinic offers assisted conception for both HIV-discordant heterosexual couples and for same-sex couples, they refused to perform this procedure. They argued that the over-riding ethical consideration in this case was the protection of the surrogate mother from HIV infection. Assuming that her risk of HIV infection outside of the surrogacy arrangement was zero, implantation of the fertilised egg, however much care was taken to reduce the risk of HIV transmission, would result in a higher than zero risk for the woman. The ethics committee of the clinic supported the clinic's decision not to perform the procedure and the reasoning behind it. (1)
