What’s the general MN verdict on donor eggs?

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The general critical re-examination of surrogacy is quite evident, and I have my own views on that, which I’ll keep quiet for the purposes of this thread.

Now I find myself chewing over other fertility treatment. I’ve had fertility treatment myself and so have family members. So I have a sense of how private clinics put you on a conveyor belt and normalise things.

What is the general view on donor eggs & embryos (implanted into the birth mother and gestated by her)?

Im trying really hard not to bias the result so have tossed a coin to assign YABU/YANBU to viewpoints. Don’t read into that.

YANBU = Donor gametes are ethically fine.
YABU = Donor gametes are problematic.

Especially not now, with climate change, the rising cost of living, and all the various crises that humans are likely to live through in the next 100 years.

There's been savagery and war for the entirety of human history. Nobody should ever have had children in the last 12,000 years? No creature should reproduce at all. It's life, we live in a safe country with a decent standard of living compared to most of the world.

I do think we're overpopulated, but even still. This isn't exactly new.

Re the child with East European heritage - it is somehow very sad that this child will not experience that heritage and culture. I'm really not sure how to feel about it. I am not sure there is such a thing as a cultural heritage independent of family/environment - in other words, it is probably not something inherent that the child will be able to feel the absence of - and yet I do feel a sense of loss on his behalf. I suppose because I know how important cultural identity is to me as an adult.

I am not sure this is the case in all authorities, but when looking at adoption and fostering my authority was very explicit about placing children with families of the same race and ethnicity/culture, even if they were babies. Part of me does feel the same should be true for donor gametes - but I do also recognise that perhaps this is just my own bias. Maybe there are no ill-effects to cross-cultural egg/sperm/embryo purchase.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers I remember at Uni having to sit through a presentation by another student ranting and raving about how all fertility treatment was immoral and anybody who couldn’t have a child just had to suck it up.

They already had a four year old child.

I had just had major surgery for endometriosis. It took me 4 surgeries (2 major), countless trips to a&e and 2 courses of hormone treatment to have my very much longed for child naturally.

I didn’t/don’t consider it my right to “buy” body parts. But I am grateful that if I do have secondary fertility there might be a child I could give a home and a life. I haven’t reached the point where this is a major consideration for me, but I am grateful there are options.

I think it’s fine.

Those that are voting YABU are probably women who had no issues conceiving their own kids and so have no empathy for those who cannot conceive and will go to great lengths to do what has come naturally for many women.

Dont judge is basically what I am saying

@Robinni

Sorry you had to go through that. Endometriosis is awful.

I have it but it is not detectable via ultrasounds and so I haven’t been offered any treatment for it (besides advice to go on contraceptive pill - which may alleviate symptoms but is not a treatment)

I am very conflicted on this as my young daughter chose to donate her eggs as a first year student. It was all done correctly through the NHS and I found that pretty appalling. She was only 18, just left home for University, what did she know about the implications of her actions? But the NHS was happy to harvest her healthy young eggs, probably for a much older woman, which I cannot feel is right and feels a bit Handmaids Tale.

So I may well have a biological grandchild out there. And my lovely altruistic daughter will have to live with this as she grows up and matures and may well get a door knock in 18 years time. So I think far more caution and circumspection is needed than currently exists in the process.

Those that are voting YABU are probably women who had no issues conceiving their own kids and so have no empathy for those who cannot conceive and will go to great lengths to do what has come naturally for many women.

Its not just about those who can't conceive naturally however. They aren't the only people involved here. There are the children conceived and the women who donate whose rights and feelings need to be taken into consideration also.

Thank you for understanding my rather vague comment. I may be projecting, and that could be because coming from a mixed heritage myself has sometimes left me feeling somewhat lost, without a place to truly fit in. I do think a common thread amongst DCP who have posted is a sense of loss or something missing, I hope I have understood that correctly. I am most interested in their voices since they are the people with lived experience who can improve future outcomes for these children. There are of course many other issues to consider, including the rights of adults to conceive and the need to protect the rights of donors, but I tend to agree with other posters that the rights of the child are paramount. I do think it is absolutely right for adopted children to be placed with families of the same race and ethnicity/culture. I could not say, either, whether this should apply to donor gametes.

Lots of women who've had fertility issues/ treatment, including me, find any use of a third party to have a baby problematic. It's not a straightforward divide as you are making out.

@HeadNorth

whats your issue with your daughters eggs being used for women who are older than her?

But having a child isn’t necessary in any medical way??

Actually you’re wrong - I was facing another major surgery and having a colostomy unless I got pregnant. Thankfully avoided, but endo has come back again and I’m being told pregnancy is my best “treatment”.

Then there’s all the people whose mental health, relationships, earning capacity etc suffers due to infertility. It’s perfectly valid to be on the NHS, I just wish what was offered was uniform across the U.K. as it is a postcode lottery at present.

I don’t really know, like I say I am conflicted, but it does feel a bit Handmaids Tale. Like you can decide to commission a baby in your 40s using the eggs of a naive young girl who grew up in a village and really knows nothing of the world. I think it is the power imbalance.

@HeadNorth

its a tough one isn’t it. Cos you could argue that in that scenario the younger woman, your daughter as all the power because she holds the currency of youth…

The genetic "donor" parents and the birth parents may all have made an informed and conscious decision that they don't believe genetics play a big part in families or personal identity.

But the CHILD has no say whatsoever. They don't get the opportunity to make that decision. No one seems to care whether they will turn out to be one of the people who don't think it's a big deal, or one of the people who think it's a massive deal.

Cos you could argue that in that scenario the younger woman, your daughter as all the power because she holds the currency of youth

The daughter does hold something very valuable.

You could argue that they're persuaded by those more powerful than themselves to hand it over very cheaply.

I too feel uncomfortable about university students making money like this. They are a vulnerable group financially. Who knows how they will feel about this down the line, the consequences of having their own biological children out there somewhere?

Have they really thought this through? What happens if the child wants to contact them in the future? How will they feel if they struggle to conceive themselves when they want to? I'm not sure anyone's particularly motivated to help them understand how this might actually impact them emotionally in the longer term.

Personally I think you haven't got a fucking clue.

But the problem with ‘the currency of youth’ is that you are too inexperienced to understand its value and the implications for you. It is like when people claim good looking young women have all the power because older rich men drool over them. But to my mind young women can look beautiful and fearless but can in fact be insecure, naive and ripe for exploitation. I don’t think our NHS should have taken an 18 years old’s eggs, it seems cavalier about the longer term psychological implications. I think the health service should have looked after her better and considered it more holistically, not just ‘your eggs are healthy, let’s have them’.

But the problem with ‘the currency of youth’ is that you are too inexperienced to understand its value and the implications for you

Exactly

Cos you could argue that in that scenario the younger woman, your daughter as all the power because she holds the currency of youth…

What power? The power to command a fee of a few hundred quid in return for undergoing an ivf cycle and egg collection before signing away your genetic material?

Teenagers being recruited seems one of the uglier aspects of the industry, to me.Trying to dress that up differently feels distasteful.

Donation could easily be restricted to, say, 25-34 year olds. It doesn’t have to involve extremely young women.

@WalkerWalking some children are born to drug addicts or alcoholics, some have poor or rich parents, some a single parent, some live in Australia, some in Iceland…. You get the idea. Some of these people will consider their circumstances to be a problem and some won’t.

None of these very important children - as all children are - get a say in who their parents will be, what their family will be comprised of or what they are exposed to environmentally. The parents make the decision and they are born - blended families, adoptive families, families where the bio parents give them up at a later point, all sorts of families.

I don’t see how people conceived with 1-2 donors are a special case in this.

The process does need to be regulated better to protect vulnerable women (donors and those seeking fertility treatment) and to ensure that where possible the bio parent is a friend/family member or someone who is prepared to be contacted later and will leave info for the child.

But if you’re going to go down the road of child being centred then we better go around demanding that everyone wishing to have a baby has to have a specific set of circumstances deemed to be desirable to any potential offspring just so they’ll be ok with it all.

Understand your point but I think what is different here is we are talking about the regulated fertility industry. Of course you can't interfere in who people have sex with, what drugs their parents take, where they live etc (unless social services have to be involved); however, where you have the health industry intervening , like adoption, the decisions should be taken in the best interests of the child. You wouldn't argue that we shouldn't vet adoptive parents etc because parents who conceive naturally are not vetted. So the same with DC. Furthermore, DC legislation means that the non-bio parents go on the birth certificate of the child. That should only be allowed if the first birth certificate references the actual bio parent(s) as well so that the state is not complicit in the parents lie.
Of course people will do unethical, online sperm donation (egg donation is a bit harder to do like that but assume some might go abroad) that doesn't mean that they proper process shouldn't be organised and thought through as well as we can.
Legislation is a very powerful influencer on people's behaviour. If the state legislates to say this is the correct way to go about donor conception, this centres the child as best we can then it will change lots of people's minds about what is ethical and what isn't.

Completely agree. My DD was 15 when she received social media advertisements to sell her eggs. She had been doing some university internet searches and the algorithms noticed and sent ads her way. It's a form of grooming and it's very unethical. I saved screenshots as I was so angry about it...she was only 15!!!!

I could never 'shop' a catalogue of young women's eggs. I'm so sorry they convinced your daughter @HeadNorth to do this.

Understand your point but I think what is different here is we are talking about the regulated fertility industry. Of course you can't interfere in who people have sex with, what drugs their parents take, where they live etc (unless social services have to be involved); however, where you have the health industry intervening , like adoption, the decisions should be taken in the best interests of the child. You wouldn't argue that we shouldn't vet adoptive parents etc because parents who conceive naturally are not vetted. So the same with DC. Furthermore, DC legislation means that the non-bio parents go on the birth certificate of the child. That should only be allowed if the first birth certificate references the actual bio parent(s) as well so that the state is not complicit in the parents lie.

Well said @mucky123