Donor bill would help prevent exploitation

http://newsok.com/article/3446977

Donor bill would help prevent exploitation
POINT OF VIEW Egg donation measure
BY JENNIFER LAHL, DAVID PRENTICE AND MIKE JESTES | Oklahoman
Published: March 17, 2010

In "Egg donation bill badly misguided” (Point of View, March 10), Dr. Eli Reshef tries to emotionally manipulate with stories of women who can only use donated eggs for in vitro fertilization. His stories are compelling, and he may mislead some into thinking that state Rep. Rebecca Hamilton’s House Bill 3077 would effectively ban egg donation in Oklahoma, but in truth the bill only bans commercial payments.

Those payments, thousands of dollars, are used as an inducement to lure young women to risk their health. Similar compelling stories abound of young women whose health has been harmed, and some fatally, after being lured into egg donation by such financial incentives.

The bill would not ban donation of eggs — altruistic donation is allowed. Reshef rightly states that "No woman in her right mind would be willing to spend seven weeks of tests, blood drawings, injections and a surgical procedure to remove eggs without being compensated for her time and trouble.” One might wonder just why that might be.

While he correctly identified some of the time and steps involved in egg donation, he blithely ignores the real health risks also associated with egg donation. His statement that there is "no scientific evidence” for risks to women’s health is blatantly false. Perhaps he is simply ignorant of the huge volume of published scientific papers, going back over 15 years, that warns of these risks. Those include papers in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Human Reproduction, Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics, and Fertility and Sterility, the flagship journal of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, Dr. Reshef’s professional society.

In fact, ASRM’s own guidelines for fertility doctors note that "Life-threatening complications” include kidney failure, respiratory distress, hemorrhage from ovarian rupture, and blood clots and "fertility drugs and procedures involved in oocyte donation could increase a woman’s future health risks, including the risk of impaired fertility.” Other references note similar short-term and long-term health risks. Hopefully Reshef or the egg brokers from whom he buys eggs receive completely informed consent, including this information, from egg donors.

Reshef also attempts to delude with the ridiculous comparison of egg donation with sperm or plasma donation, for which compensation is allowed. The proper comparison would be to bone marrow donation. Bone marrow donors also go through weeks of tests, blood drawings, injections and a surgical procedure to provide bone marrow. This is truly a life-saving donation for many people with leukemias and other cancers, anemias, and now some autoimmune diseases. But bone marrow donors are not compensated. In fact, it is against federal law to provide valuable consideration for bone marrow or any other organ, with a penalty of $50,000 and/or five years imprisonment for violating this payment ban.

Hamilton’s bill would deny no one the opportunity to mother a healthy child through in vitro fertilization. But it would help prevent the exploitation of young women in Oklahoma.

Lahl, R.N., is with the Center for Bioethics & Culture. Prentice is senior fellow for life sciences at the Family Research Council. Jestes is executive director of the Oklahoma Family Policy Council.

Those commercial payments, thousands of dollars, are used as an inducement to lure young women to risk their health.

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