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.

It's absolutely fine

This is the thing. It’s my observation that the easier access to the gametes is, the less of an ethical debate there even is, which of course is tempting when you’re facing infertility. Secondary infertility, in my case.

Which is why, I think, the donor sperm genie is well out of the box and not being discussed much at all. (Which is why I didn’t include it in the vote.)

Similarly, but running 50+ years behind, donor eggs and embryos have become much more available over the past two decades without much public debate. Practice has just overtaken policy, and of course it is so tempting to just go with it when you’re there at the clinic and the medics are telling you that donor gametes are the obvious next step.

In terms of identity for the donor conceived person, obviously the issues are exactly the same, be it sperm or eggs, and double in the case of donor embryos. OTOH, for the donors, it is fair to say egg donation is much more arduous as a procedure.

Interesting that the vote is almost evenly split.

The women participating are adults so I vote it is fine.

I think incentivising egg donations as part of IVF is as ethically problematic as paying women, if not more so. Women about to embark on IVF are often in an emotionally vulnerable state and the offers clinics give are very tempting. The idea of donating eggs as part of your cycle only for your cycle to fail but the donor recipient’s to be a success is awful. Imagine being contacted by your biological offspring 18 years later if you ultimately hadn’t been able to have your own child. I am not sure how thoroughly this is explored with women donating this way, although I know counselling is mandatory for donors.

I can understand the desire for a child. But I don't think anyone has the right to be a parent.
I think saying it's unethical to deny same sex couples the chance is muddying two different areas entirely. Ideally they should have the same opportunities as extended to other infertile couples. But where to draw the line? Donated sperm, surrogacy?
But donated gametes must be considered in terms of the children created from them as well as how they were obtained.
I don't know what the 'right' answer is. But I was very struck recently by a poster on MN who was an adopted child and was really struggling with what that had meant for them. The sense of being wanted/grateful by their adopted parents was really at odds with the distress they were feeling at having been put up for adoption.
It's complicated. Too complicated for a simple yes/no.

To add however I do think genuinely altruistic donation should be allowed with appropriate protocols around access to donor information when the child becomes an adult.

It’s not just a debate about whether the children should exist or not though, is it? There’s nuance that any decent debate should cover such as traceability, identity, registration, treatment tourism, etc.

We left it, but every month I’m still tempted to ring the clinic and squeeze in a menopause baby. My family ended with losses so it’s emotional. These decisions always are. I’m quite sure that if I’d had no DC, I would have gone with it, but I would still expect there to be rules, a framework and oversight.

I’m interested to know how the woman on the street sees it.

Yes that’s fair. It is immensely complicated and so is infertility.

I am very opposed to surrogacy but I see egg donation as completely different.

Yes, the process can take a toll on the egg donor's mother, but not compared to actually carrying a baby intended for someone else. Nobody is forcing women to donate their eggs, and even if they receive some payment, it's not going to be a main source of income, the way commercial surrogacy is. In that sense I think there is much less risk of exploiting young and poor women for their reproductive labour. So I think that if you have given your informed consent to donating your eggs because you want to help someone have a child, and you understand the process, it should be your choice to do that. It's not the same as spending a year of your life growing a baby and then handing it over to someone else to raise.

As far as the baby is concerned, the woman who gives birth to it is its mother. Surrogacy involves deliberately conceiving a child with the intention of removing it from its birth mother as soon as it is born. Egg donation does not. As soon as the embryo is implanted into the intended mother, she is the one who does the rest of the work. She grows the baby, she gives birth to the baby, she raises the baby. She is the baby's mother.

Well it must be absolutely lovely being able to conceive and carry a Baby to term with no worries about fertility issues and stuff. Pity we can't all manage to do that!! So no I have no problems at all with it. I have no problems with surrogacy either when done legally and used for the right reasons to help a childless couple unable to conceive or carry a Pregnancy to term. However I also think, that like adoption surrogacy should also be approved by social services of the couple wanting a Baby and also the mental and emotional health of the surrogate be taken into consideration to stop couples exploiting vulnerable women from foreign countries or them feeling like they need to do it in order to get money. There should also be a cut off to how many times you can be a surrogate to someone.

The reason I feel differently about sperm is there are no risks associated with retrieval. Menierally leave the stuff all over the place.

I also think babies have a link with the person that carries them and gives birth to them and that if they are removed from that person they experience loss. I could be wrong about that but that is part of my reasoning for feeling different about different scenarios.

Yes, the whole “in utero bonding” issue seems highly significant to me, too, but I’m never sure if I’m over-emphasising that at the expense of the genetic issue because of my own bias.

There's an ethical difference between donated eggs and bought eggs.

And there's a massive difference between eggs and sperm. Men can and always have left their sperm all over the place, having no idea what happens to it afterwards. Men have children without ever being aware of it. Women don't. Women don't casually lay eggs that someone else may or may not turn into a human.

I don't see a big problem about donor eggs and donated embryos . The child would be gestated by its birth mother and remain with her. The mother baby bond would absolutely exist and remain intact. Genetics really don't matter in that respect, the baby only knows it's mother. Her sound, taste, movements and smell. It wouldn't recognise it's genetic parents ( if it was a donated embryo).

Surrogacy is human trafficking. It's no different to purchasing an organ in my eyes and it prioritises the buyers over the baby.

Personally I think if you cant have children naturally you have no right to buy body parts/ substances from other people.

I would love to hear from children conceived as such once adults, and their opinions and feelings- rather than parents who insist everything is fine because they got what they wanted.

This is also my position. Which in the U.K. only means U.K. donors who are typically women donating their eggs to fund their own fertility treatment

@AlternativePerspective I agree with you. But playing devils advocate- how many people have children the conventional way without any thought about their quality of life ? How many born into terrible lives? At least with fertilisation you have some idea the child is wanted and loved.

Having kids the normal way is often commodified too.

I think there is a problem with traceability. It's impossible to know where people get their eggs and sperm from. Unregulated donors and donors from abroad are impossible to spot and nothing can be done to offer these kids the choice of finding their biological heritage (should they desire).

What worries me is that arguments about the commodification of women’s bodies, which is my concern, is dismissed as homophobic or less important than the desire to have a child.

I do however think donor eggs are much less concerning than commercial surrogacy but there are ethical issues.

What a disgusting thread. As if the heartache of infertility or having a genetic disease isn’t painful enough. Now this, a thread on a site used by many, many mothers of donor egg babies, to be criticised and judged by other, frankly, callous, ill informed, utterly clueless women.

You should hang your head in shame for creating a space for the toxic judgments of the ignorant poster, who just loves a thread like this, somewhere to release their pent up vitriol concerning a subject they know nothing of.

Well done 👏🏼

I've come lately and reluctantly to think that all gamete and embryo donation is wrong. I have a load of embryos frozen myself (from my partner and my gametes) which we thought we'd donate. Now we know for sure we will not. I don't feel very strongly about it though.

I have no problem with it at all, and I think people like to forget that there are many many children conceived naturally have no relationship with their dads or don’t even know who they are as well.

You get a discount on IVF if you donate eggs which always seems abit iffy

I think egg donation is a wonderful thing that science has made possible.

I was almost a donor for a close friend, but I ended up not being able to donate. I am so glad she had an anonymous donor in the end because her children are wonderful but I would not like the complications of seeing my genetic material in a close friend's family.

I personally don't agree with fertility treatments that require any 3rd party, be it egg donor, sperm donor or surrogacy, and would not choose to use them myself. HOWEVER those are my own personal feelings and I don't think that I'm important enough to have any say as to other peoples choices when it comes to using those methods. My view is very much the same as abortion, I don't like it, I'd never choose it, but everyone has their right to their opinion. No answer is ever 100% right or 100% wrong.