In Germany, reproductive medicine is regulated by the embryo protection law. This law is supposed to protect women from misuse of reproductive medical techniques.
In short, the most important points are:
- A maximum of three embryos can be transferred into the uterus per transfer. This is supposed to protect the woman from becoming pregnant with more than three children.
- Embryos are not allowed to be selected. The fertilized egg cell is considered an embryo after the merging of the male and female pronuclei. (A selection of pronuclear states is therefore legal)
- Surrogate motherhood, egg donation and selection of the embryo’s sex are illegal
- Cloning as well as IVF/ICSI is illegal if the goal is not to achieve a pregnancy (such as research)