ASRM Ethics Committee Delivers New Opinion on Assisted Reproduction with Advancing Parental Age

June 24, 2025
For immediate release

Washington, DC—The Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) published a new opinion, which addresses ethical, medical, and psychological considerations of providing fertility care to potential parents at an advanced reproductive age.

The opinion concludes that defining an age point at which to routinely provide counsel for or against should be set by individual programs, and may change over time given that societal health determinants and life expectancy estimates are dynamic. Clinics should have written policies regarding inclusion and exclusion criteria relating to parental age to ensure consistency in assessments and to reduce the risk of bias.



Ethical, medical and psychological considerations raised in the opinion include:

• Risks associated with reproduction at an advanced reproductive age fall into three broad categories: (1) risks to offspring associated with the use of gametes from older individuals, (2) increasing health risks of gestating at an older age, and (3) risk from having older parents who may have a limited number of expected healthy life years available for parenting.
• Those gestating at an advanced reproductive age face increased medical risks, and careful counseling is warranted, potentially in conjunction with medical specialists. 
• Prospective patients of advanced reproductive age should be counseled about the potential negative impact of their age on the success of fertility treatments when using their own sperm or eggs, as well as on the increased medical risks to the resultant offspring. 
• Prospective patients of advanced reproductive age should be counseled regarding short- and long-term parenting and child-rearing issues specific to their age and health, which may include a psychosocial consultation.
• Historically, maternal age restrictions in fertility care have been carefully discussed in the ethics literature and commonly limit women’s access to reproductive care. Men have not received this same counsel, nor have they been as likely to face age restrictions in reproductive care. A gender equity perspective would suggest that women should enjoy the same level of reproductive opportunity as men.

In April, the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology released its annual national and clinic-specific data on the use of assisted reproductive technology, which found that 2023 followed a decades-long trend of increased use and success with in vitro fertilization (IVF). In 2023, the number of babies born from IVF increased, rising from 91,771 in 2022 to 95,860 in the latest round of reporting and accounting for 2.6% of births in the United States.

The Ethics Committee opinion was published in Fertility and Sterility, a monthly publication of ASRM.

To learn more, read "Assisted reproduction with advancing paternal and maternal age: an Ethics Committee opinion"