Marketing of Eggs

Position

Origins-USA, Inc. disapproves of the practice of exploiting the fertility of young women so that women too old to become pregnant naturally can bear children. If donation of human eggs is to occur, it should be permitted only under the following circumstances:

• The prospective donor receives counseling from a disinterested counselor and legal services from an attorney, neither of whom work for nor are paid by the prospective egg recipient or her fertility clinic.
• The prospective donor receives no compensation other than re-imbursement for medical services, transportation costs, and lost wages.
• Both the donor and the child or children resulting from the donation are informed of the identity and location of the other and have the opportunity to develop a relationship through visitation and the exchange of letters and pictures.

 Supporting Evidence

Unlike giving blood, an egg donor (a woman who supplies eggs without compensation other than reimbursement for actual costs) parts with a unique piece of herself. This bit of DNA will join with another’s DNA to create a human being. This new person will resemble the egg donor, the genetic mother, in appearance, personality, and talents and have little in common with the egg recipient, the unnatural mother.

Women considering donating eggs must be informed of the psychological and physical risks of the procedure. To assure counselors are unbiased and attorneys are advocates for their clients, counselors and attorneys must work independently from the fertility clinic and must be paid by a source other than the clinic or the egg recipient. This source could be a trust overseen by a government agency and funded by clinic licensing fees.

In addition to the psychological and physical risks donors will endure, they need to be informed of the risks to the child or children. Unlike open adoptions, egg donors do not select the egg recipient. Consequently donors must be informed that the egg recipient may not be a suitable parent. Many recipients are infertile because they spent their younger years pursuing careers, eschewing child-bearing until it was too late. These unnatural mothers may not have the energy or commitment necessary to nurture a child.

According to a survey of 80 egg donors conducted at least two years after donation by researchers at the University of Washington and reported in the December, 2008 issue of Fertility and Sterility[1] 26 percent of the women had negative or mixed feelings about the donation. Seven women were curious to know about any children that may have resulted from their donation. Two donors had ongoing concerns that a child that they might bear and raise might by chance meet and develop a relationship with the donor offspring. No studies have been conducted or can be conducted on the long terms effects of egg donation because there is no registry of egg donors. Consequently there is no information on post traumatic stress syndrome or other psychological or physical problems that may come long after the eggs are harvested.

Although fertility purveyors claim that they want women to supply eggs for altruistic reasons rather than for money, many pay large sums to attract women they consider to be desirable. According to the UW survey, about 20 percent of the donors were motivated solely by cash and about 40 percent were motivated by both altruism and the promise of money. Besides blinding women to the risks of donation, large cash rewards devalue human life, turning it into a commodity

Twenty percent of the women in the UW survey reported not being made aware of the health risks from egg donation. These risks are summarized here.

The egg donation process consists of two phases: ovarian hyperstimulation and egg retrieval (Stanford University “Egg Donor Information Project”[2]). During the hyperstimulation phase, women receive drugs to create an artificial menopause, encourage the development of multiple egg follicles and cause ovulation. Doctors measure periodically for the maturation of eggs through pelvic ultrasounds and blood tests.

Donors commonly experience pain, abdominal swelling, tension and pressure in the ovarian area, mood swings, and bruising at injection sites. Temporary menopause-like symptoms including vaginal dryness and hot flashes may result. A less frequently occurring condition is ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), a serious complication marked by chest and abdominal fluid buildup and cystic enlargement of the ovaries that can cause permanent injury and even death. Severe OHSS affects between one and 10 percent of donors.

Less frequently, drugs cause adnexal torsion, a condition that results when a stimulated ovary twists on itself and cuts off blood supply. Surgery is required to untwist and in some cases remove the ovary. Additionally, some studies suggest that one of the drugs may increase a woman’s chance of developing ovarian cancer. Doctors have reported a few cases where a drug aggravated existing tumors of the pituitary gland and caused strokes.

Eggs are retrieved through transvaginal ultrasound aspiration, a surgical procedure performed under conscious sedation. The physician guides a suctioning needle into each ovary and removes mature eggs from the follicles. Egg retrieval can cause mild to moderate discomfort.

Major injury to the bladder, bowel, uterus, blood vessels or other pelvic structures occurs in approximately 1 in 500 to 1000 surgeries. Other surgical risks include acute ovarian trauma, infection, infertility, vaginal bleeding, and lacerations. Additionally, anesthetic complications may occur. In one study of 674 women who underwent egg retrieval, 1.5 present required hospitalization due to complications during or after surgery.

Egg donors should have the right to know the identity of the children they helped to create and have the opportunity to establish a relationship with these children through visits, pictures, and letters. Lacking knowledge, egg donors may suffer from severe anxiety. Like women who surrendered babies in closed adoptions, donors may find themselves scanning faces in shopping malls looking for people who look like them. Children created through egg donation likewise should have the right to know their donor.

Unless donor and child know each other, there is a risk that the donor’s children and the children created from her eggs may meet and marry. Seventy percent of the women in the UW survey donated eggs more than once and each donation produced more than a dozen eggs.

Conclusion

In summary, donating eggs exposes young women to physical and psychology dangers in order to meet the needs of older, affluent women. The practice should be strictly controlled to assure that women are not induced by the promise of large cash payments to sell their eggs; that they are informed of the risks and their legal rights; and that both the donor and child can know each other’s identity and develop a relationship.

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[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/26/AR2008122600594.html; http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/30/health/webmd/main4691689.shtml

[2] http://www.stanford.edu/class/siw198q/websites/eggdonor/home.html (2002)