BBC Scotland recruiting young women as egg donors

I have watched a friend go through multiple rounds of egg harvesting and it's horrific. The toll it takes on the female body is significant. Add to that the psychological cost. Anyone who thinks this is a reasonable ask from any healthy young (or not so young) woman in the name of "be kind" needs locking up.

The problem is that it’s not really about when things go well - a baby is born and everyone is happy. Is it that simple?

Because, with reproductive technology, the ramifications of things going wrong are so severe that they need serious consideration at the legislative and regulatory stage.

Also where is the end point at which the success or happy outcome of a donation is judged? Is it when the baby is born? Is it when the donor has successfully completed her own family? Is it when the baby grows up and does or doesn’t seek contact as an adult? Is it when they begin to consider the genetic inheritance of their own children?

I am not saying that it shouldn’t happen (I considered doing it myself, as per my first post, but I thank my lucky stars that I never pursued it!) but I am saying that gamete donation is a weighty undertaking as the consequences might only be felt years or decades from now. And very young people, I would suggest, are less able to make those imaginative leaps or fully grasp the significance of what they are doing.

Deaths have been reported as a result of OHSS but you are 10 times more likely to die following natural childbirth than from donating eggs

Very odd comparison.

That's a lovely sentiment.

I don't think you're the target audience for the article (advert) though. You knew what would be involved.

I have two beautiful sons because two strangers donated sperm to a bank for no reason but to be kind. I had my children late and was too old to donate my eggs after. If I hadnt been I would have done so. I underwent 3 rounds of IVF so appreciate the discomfort and risks. I would also have had some qualms about my eggs becoming a child raised by another and someone making money from this but without somone else potentially overcoming similar qualms I wouldn’t have my children, giving this gift to another would have felt right for me.

In the US women are paid for this. I don’t understand why anyone would do it for free unless it was for a loved one.

Risk of the baby having Down’s syndrome is higher with donated eggs. I’m not sure about other risks but I would imagine this is not the only one.

Carrying and giving birth to a child is a far greater connection than DNA alone. My daughter was conceived from a donor egg and as far as I'm concerned she's more mine than my husband's, I literally made her. I grew her in my body and gave her life, I turned her form an embryo into a real, fully formed person. Of course she's both of our but in my mind it's 51/49 skewed to me. So what if she's not made from my DNA? That doesn't mean she's not mine or not related to me.

Women who have donor egg babies are still classed as the babies biological mother because the baby shares the gestational mother's immune system, blood and epigenetics.

It's more like an advertisement than a piece of serious journalism. It doesn't look at the ethical issues at all. It is as if passing over your dna to strangers to raise has no implications and of course it does.

It is not so straightforward to raise a child who is not biologically yours, and I say that as an adopter. At least with adoption, no parent has a bio connection to the child. With donor eggs the mother has no connection but the father probably does - this is not always easy. There was a mumsnet thread recently from a woman whose husband says he doesn't love their son (born from sperm donation).

But articles like this suggest that dna doesn't matter. How does this young woman know her biological child will be well cared for in the new family? She has signed all rights away. The child won't know who she is until they are 16 or 18. It is playing with fire imo.

There’s a bit of ‘How to show you’re a lovely girl’ going on in the messaging isn’t there?

Just volunteer, give blood or be generally nice to people until you have completed your own family and are 100% sure about egg donation - you don’t have to risk your own future fertility and peace of mind to show how generous you are!

So sorry that happened to you.

A while back I saw a US site promoting IVF via egg donation. The language on it was extremely manipulative, referring to the donors as ‘angels’ and talking up their beauty, intelligence, generosity and good intentions. They also had glossy profiles of donors on the website! Not sure how that worked with confidentiality. They all seemed to be college students under the age of 25…😕

Like everything else, Americanisation seems to be creeping in to human fertility medicine.

I too remember that it used to be ‘complete your own family first’. But perhaps that tended to raise the overall age range and led to lower success rates…

Also, the difference with organ donation is that it's a life saving act. Eggs/babies are a want not a need.

I don't think it's really anything new - as a society we've been exploiting young women in this way for a very long time. We used to force them into homes for unmarried mothers and take away their babies, but that supply has dried up now, hasn't it, so got to find a new one, and this seems to be it. There were adverts on the inside of the toilet doors in my local shopping centre last year offering £800 from age 18. Lots of 'the most precious gift' and other emotionally manipulative language. It's revolting.

In another 40 years we will be seeing news articles about adults made from donated eggs desperately trying to find their biological mothers.

Yes @Anewchickenthe ivf clinic I used seemed to make a lot of money from the donor egg process. It feels jarring that there is a big emphasis on women donating being paid just a small amount to cover their expenses, yet there seems no regulator interest in the amount of profit the companies involved are making.

The other aspect I find problematic is egg sharing - where women seeking ivf for reasons such as male infertility, or because they’re in a same-sex relationship, are offered reduced cost ivf in exchange for sharing their eggs. I imagine most women doing egg sharing are doing it for financial reasons - so they can afford their own chance to have a baby. So to me it makes a mockery of the big emphasis on donors not being financially incentivised to donate.

I actually know somebody who did egg sharing, and their first round resulted in a baby for the couple she shared her eggs with, but it didn’t work for her. Which must have been really hard to process.

I’m not advocating by the way for donors to be paid a commerical rate - just highlighting some of the issues.

We do actually. I’ve read many articles on it including on the BBC. I’ve been increasingly concerned about the push for people to donate to complete strangers, so without the benefit of helping someone you love and want more time with, with little to no mention of the very real risks. And women are apparently more likely to become living donors but that’s another thread.

That said I’m very glad that a thread was started on this because it’s also despicable. It’s unethical to actively campaign for this imo even more so when it’s coming from an health board and especially with no mention of the very real risks which include death.

I looked at the cost of donor eggs recently, and it was astronomical. Are these women being encouraged to donate so the eggs banks can make thousands? A good newspaper would follow the money

I know.

My point is that it's not being advertised / promoted by the national broadcaster though.

Not is it being selectively promoted to women.

2 massive differences.

I find it really concerning how they try to downplay the risks. 15% chance of Ovarian Hyperstimulation, but its just a bit of discomfort? Sorry but I've too much experience of women's health care and "this will just be a pinch" to trust that. It also completely glosses over the risk of it impacting your own fertility.

Agree. There have been very sad cases in America of college students doing egg donation for money then making themselves infertile. 😢

I agree it is a dreadful article and particularly because it is deliberately targeting young women. I have actually done egg donation (and no I am not of low intelligence) but the difference is I had my children already and thought through all the consequences. At the time (about 10) years ago the nurse at the clinic said this was a common senario

The NHS encourages & allows other live organ donations that are more risky than egg donation e.g. a portion of liver

www.organdonation.nhs.uk/become-a-living-donor/