Sperm Donors, Egg Donors or Gamete Donors?

Recently there has been a lot of conversation on the blog about anonymous donors.   Sometimes it’s clear that people have meant to use the term inclusively, to cover both egg donors and sperm donors.   But sometimes it seems to have been more specifically about sperm donors, as when sperm donors were compared with ”deadbeat dads.”  

It seems to me that in some respects whatever concerns there are about anonymous donors should be the same for sperm donors and egg donors.   In essence, they donate the same thing–genetic material necessary to create a child.   To the extent it seems like a problem, in both cases a child might not be able to trace back his or her genetic lineage.     

Despite this similarity, the conversation tended to focus fairly specifically on sperm donors from time to time, while it never migrated specifically to egg donors.

News from the UK:New Rights for Donor Siblings

There’s much coverage in UK papers of some new provisions of the law governing ART that just took effect.  (I’ve linked to a couple of different accounts and with a little work, you could find many more.)   These provisions make it possible for people conceived using the same donor’s sperm to locate each other.   They are generally referred to here as either half-siblings or donor siblings.  

It’s worth thinking about donor siblings for a moment.   Siblings generally are minor players in the law–they don’t have  a lot of rights vis-a-vis each other.   This makes recognition of donor siblings more strictly a social/cultural concern and less a legal one.  It also makes it a less complicated issue, since identifying a sibling doesn’t raise autonomy issues that identifying a donor might.  

The Wrong Embryo: Variations on a Theme

I want to continue the wrong-embryo thread a bit longer, but before I do I want to make it clear that I am now fully in the realm of the hypothetical.   The discussion here takes off from the earlier posts, but I’m now changing facts freely just to make myself good questions. 

In the real world, the Carolyn Savage ended up pregnant after an embryo that belonged to someone else was transferred into her uterus.   Now we’ve assumed that the embryo was actually created with the other couples sperm and egg.  But suppose that is not the case.   Suppose the other couple had purchased one of the elements (let’s start with sperm) and then used it to create the embryos that were frozen. 

Anonymous Donors And What To Do About Them

My last post, which was quite modest, really, sparked a discussion about anonymous gamete (that’s sperm and egg) donors.   Reading the comments made me think about the topic again.  It’s come up in comments from time to time before and there are a few posts on the subject back there as well. 

I think it is time to revisit the topic and lay out my thinking on it a bit more clearly.  I know, of course, that plenty of people will disagree with me. And I’ll start by stating an underlying assumption that is critical to what follows:    I do not believe gamete donors are or should be seen as parents. 

Regulating Adoption/ART, II: For Example

This really picks right up on yesterday’s post, so you’ll want to read that first I should think.   I want to offer an example on the theory that this will help me (and perhaps readers, too) evaluate the point I’m trying to make. 

Imagine X, a very wealthy and eccentric single man who wants a child.    (Yes, I’ve been thinking about Michael Jackson and his children yet again.  I know it’s all quite sensationalized, but this item  about the third child, Blanket(?), caught my attention.)   It seems to me he might have two options.  

Plan A:  X tries to adopt a child.   As far as I know, no matter what state the person chose, this would involve some sort of home study that included evaluating  X’s fitness as a parent.   If X were sufficiently eccentric, this could be a problem.  

The Real Cost of Egg Donation?

Here’s a recent articlefrom the Timesonline (of London) about the risks of egg donation and the morality, in light of those risks,  of paying egg donors.   I’ve touched on this topic in other contexts several times recently so it seemed worth commenting on this article.  

The article first raises a crucial factual question:   How dangerous is it to be an egg donor?   Clearly in the view of a number of those interviewed, the answer is “pretty dangerous.”   That’s actually a surprise to me, but not because I’ve actually seen statistical studies to the contrary.  I’ve just never seen this contention seriously advanced before.   Perhaps that is unsurprising, given the market conditions here in the US.  (I’ll return to this point in a moment.)  Anyway, if anyone has links to other sources on the risk involved, I’d be interested to see them.    

A bit of background on UK law is useful in understanding the article.   Paying egg donors more than a nominal sum is unlawful in the UK. 

Egg Buying, II

The story I blogged about a week-and-a-half ago has finally reached the NY Times.   (This is the one about NY state now paying women to donate eggs for stem cell research.) 

The story prompted me to return to this thread for a moment.  As the NY Times makes clear, for some the concern about buying the eggs is that women will give their eggs for other than altruistic reasons. 

This suggests two distinctions are being drawn–first, between altruistic and non-altruistic behavior, and second, between donating eggs for IVF as opposed to donating eggs for research.  It’s apparently okay to donate eggs for IVF no matter what your motivation but, at least for some people, it’s only okay to donate eggs for research for altruistic reasons.  

The Ethics of Buying Eggs

Here’s a little news tidbit that is making me think.  New York State will now pay women to donate eggs for embryonic stem cell research.  No other state does this.   All other states recruit women to donate for free.  And according to the article, this is not terribly successful. 

The first thing I wonder about is whether there is some meaningful difference between paying women to donate eggs and buying the eggs.   The former is the formulation used in the article.   But is that any different from the latter?  

To the extent one sees this as a moral issue (and I think that is what the discussion here is primarily about) does it matter how you characterize it? 

The Logical Extension?: Buying a Child

Over the last year or so there have been occasional stories about the globalization of surrogacy, some of which I’ve commented on here.  Two related stories from the UK have made me want to revisit this thread.   

This story (with it’s rather spectacular headline, but then, this is UK journalism) is really just another instance of the global surrogacy–a minor variation on an established theme.    Here, a UK couple (Nicky and Bobby Bains) purchased a donor egg which was fertilized with the husband’s sperm.   The resulting pre-embryo was then implanted in another woman’s womb.   This last women–the surrogate–eventually gave birth to the child.  

This is essentially routine gestational surrogacy, of the commercial sort, with a global twist.  

Lesbians Ideal Egg-Sharers?

I just cannot resist doing a short post on this, seeing as it does tie back to my post from earlier today.  

Here’s the deal.   Some ART clinics offer egg-sharing.  I believe these clinics are all in the UK, but I’m not sure about this. 

The idea is that if I go in for ART (I assume mainly for IVF) and offer to share some of my eggs, then I get a cut-rate on my own treatment.  (As you can see from the linked article, it’s a very substantial savings.)   The clinic then offers those eggs to another client of theirs who needs eggs.   Especially where egg donors are not paid (as in the UK)  this helps ensure a supply of eggs.  (There’s an egg shortage in the UK, just as there is a sperm shortage.)