"Thinking About Donating Your Eggs? Think Again" - CBC 2/26/10

http://www.cbc-network.org/2010/02/thinking-about-donating-your-eggs-thi...

Thinking About Donating Your Eggs? Think Again
Center for Bioethics and Culture Network

February 26th, 2010

"Egg donation is risky business. But unlike other high-risk jobs that offer appropriate compensation for the dangers (e.g., skyscraper window washing), the egg donation process is inherently risky, from beginning to end. What are those risks? Stroke, organ failure, infection, cancer, loss of future fertility, and in rare instances, even death. Sadly, longer-term risks remain a mystery, let alone properly understood, because of the lack of any long-term medical research or follow-ups on egg donors.

But isn’t egg donation like organ donation? In organ donation, the donor assumes risks to his own health in order to save a patient’s life—to help a sick or dying person. But the recipient of the egg donor’s gametes is not sick or unhealthy—not a patient, but a consumer, purchasing her eggs. The end purpose of the donation is importantly different, and therefore, not analogous to organ donation. And society rightfully condones the selling or payment for organs in order to prevent abuses and save lives, whereas the large sums of monetary compensation to women egg donors causes them to be exploited by their need for money. Financial incentives impede true, freely given informed consent. Like organs, eggs are a non-replenishable resource. Women are born with a finite number of eggs—and egg donation strips women of this limited resource."

Read full article here:
http://www.cbc-network.org/2010/02/thinking-about-donating-your-eggs-thi...