To tell you the Scottish Govt are targeting 18 year old girls for egg harvesting

[VestaTilley]

Yes, really.

Surrogacy Concern broke the news on Friday night. I can’t actually believe it.

Over a month to come, the Scottish Govt are asking for egg and sperm donors as young as 18 to come forward in a series of targeted ads on social media and the radio. They’ve expanded IVF provision and - in their own words - have a supply and demand issue.

I’d heard of fertility clinics advertising (bad enough in my view) but for a national Govt to do this to women is staggering. Women can die from complications arising from OHSS, which can be caused by egg donation. A British woman died in 2006 as a result.

The ads don’t mention these risks; it’s all “be kind” “do something amazing”. I cannot actually believe a Govt could be this stupid. They’ve only just apologised for forced adoption!

AIBU?

Absolutely. Early life trauma can be a lot more difficult to heal from, because there’s no conscious memory to work with. So recovery and growth can take a lot longer in therapy. And generally needs the type of therapy the NHS doesn’t provide.

A) Of course I don't trust an institution as corrupt and incompetent as the prison service. And anyone who thinks they are on the left and does, needs to give their head a wobble

You think that the Prison Service can't count the number of males in female prisons? I don't trust them to look after female prisoners properly, but I trust them to count. Fair Play For Women did their own independent research on this and reached the same conclusion, they are a small campaign group not a State institution. And they "showed their working" in case you think it's flawed.

What you are engaging in is something called "poisoning the well", it's another logical fallacy.

B) I'm not looking at any 'evidence ' purporting to prove that an entire minority group are more prone to criminality. Because I'm not a fascist.

The "minority group" in question are males, most of whom crossdress for fetishist reasons whilst claiming to have gender dysphoria. It's well-proven that they are overrepresented amongst jailed sexual offenders. This isn't a "minority group" as anti-racists or LGB people would understand the term and it's disingenuous to pretend that they are.

And anyone who thinks they are on the left

Good thing I'm neither left-wing nor right-wing, but women-wing. Marxist and Engelsian analysis are helpful to understand that misogyny comes from male desire to control women's bodies as the means of reproduction.

Economically, I'm Georgist.

That is entirely projection, I'm afraid. I really am not interested in discussing anything further with someone who is so wedded to their own ignorance. Please don't tag/quote me again. Thanks.

#OperationLetThemSpeak still going then?

At some point, Kucinghitam, you'd think it'd run out of steam. However ...

There are many reasons I don't generally engage with the gender critical. One is that I believe that they rarely argue in good faith. Another is that they always seem to offer up 'evidence' from sources I don't trust. But that's not the crux of it.

We all have beliefs that are fundamental to our worldview. To me, the belief in the right to self ID is one of those, alongside the right to freedom of movement, or the right to not be killed by the state. I wouldn't care if I was shown actual, reliable evidence that trans women were more likely to be sex offenders, or that immigrants committed more crime or harmed the economy, or that capital punishment was an effective deterrent. To me those rights are non negotiable.

And it seems to me the same is true for the gender critical. To me, biology is something to be ignored or overcome if it's an impediment to happiness. To them, it's fundamentally important. Is anyone here honestly claiming that any amount of statistical evidence would change your mind about the significance of biological sex?

The way to stop women being sexually assaulted in prison is to stop sending women to prison.

To me, for example, the surrogacy issue is different. At present I would support any individual or couple pursuing surrogacy, as long as certain safeguards were in place, but I'd be open to changing my mind based on evidence, because I don't believe that anyone has the fundamental right to use a surrogate, simply that it is a private matter between individuals unless incontrovertible evidence of resulting harm can be established.

Infertility has a devastating impact on mental health. Your callousness is astonishing.

For "infertility" substitute "celibacy" and you have the exact argument incels use to demand that women #bekind and date them regardless of how repelled we are and that the State gives them brothel vouchers.

Your sense of entitlement is glaring.

But women volunteer to be egg donors. I haven't demanded the state, or indeed any individual, give me any eggs. Nor would I accept any that had not been freely given.

One is that I believe that they rarely argue in good faith.

Says the person who branded a Georgist a "tankie" based on what can only be a deliberate misreading of my analysis of wage labour in the context of jury service and defence conscription.

Another is that they always seem to offer up 'evidence' from sources I don't trust.

Yeah, can't risk polluting your eyes with anything that's not pre-approved by Owen Jones. Or you could read it anyway and trust yourself to spot logical fallacies and methodological flaws. You know, using that agency and discernment that you accused me of claiming that women don't have.

I've already talked about how that "volunteering" can be for really unhealthy reasons. There are cases already of women with addiction to surrogacy.

And you ignore how the issue isn't about the donor's agency, but is about the medical side effects the donor faces for someone else's non-lifesaving treatment and the behaviour of recipients that we greenlight when we allow egg harvesting for a third party.

tl;dr: human eggs aren't a commodity to be bought and passed around and it's dehumanising to the donor and resulting child to treat them as such.

A) I'm confident that the counselling and screening process prevents those with unhealthy motivations from donating.

B) If there was evidence of long term medical effects (so far on this thread I've only seen theoretical risks posited) then the procedure would not be so widely available. Regulation on these matters is extremely robust in almost every country, certainly in Europe.

C) You don't actually buy the eggs. They are donated and you pay for treatment that includes having them transferred into your uterus.

By which I actually mean the embryo created from them.

I couldn't find the article I mentioned upthread on falling birthrates, but this covers the same ground

https://thecritic.co.uk/its-not-illiberal-to-care-about-falling-birth-rates/

I don't recall the other article mentioning men so much. So, pleased to see it here.

There are many reasons I don't generally engage with the gender critical.

The main one being you have no credible argument.

What you have said so far is illogical, contradictory with a side order of slurs.

Interesting article. Thanks for posting.

It's true that the causes of unwanted childlessness need to be addressed at a structural level, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't also strive to keep developing and improving reproductive technology for people who, for whatever reason, wish to start or to extend their families in their 40s or later. Both are important.

A) I'm confident that the counselling and screening process prevents those with unhealthy motivations from donating.

It doesn't stop surrogacy addicts.

I find it inconsistent that you don't trust Ministry of Justice and Prison Service, who don't have profit as a motive, but you trust a commercial fertility who do have profit as a motive. This isn't what I expect from a self-described anti-capitalist.

C) You don't actually buy the eggs. They are donated and you pay for treatment that includes having them transferred into your uterus.

You're still de facto buying a child.

The SEND threads are full of parents struggling with, clearly resenting, and sometimes explicitly expressing regret for having their disabled children. The Neurodiverse board is full of adults living with the aftermath of being that resented, regretted child.

Think carefully about how paying money for a child who turns out to be disabled might worsen parental resent and regret of that child.

trust a commercial fertility clinic

You definitely buy the eggs in the UK. They’re donated by the donor but the clinics then make money off them.

London Egg Bank (associated with London Women’s Clinic) charges £5,250 for 6 and £7,500 for 10

https://www.londoneggbank.com/using-donor-eggs/costs/

I wouldn't care if I was shown actual, reliable evidence that trans women were more likely to be sex offenders

Are you Sophie Grace Chappell??

You have already been shown actual reliable evidence, it just conveniently didn't pass your purity test. Whereas you expect others to accept your lived experience as evidence, when it suits you.

You want what you want, and you will do whatever necessary to get it. You can try to dress it up as a moral or political viewpoint, but it's really not. You are willing to do things others find immoral in order to get what you want, and you're trying to justify that and getting cross that it's not working. That's all.

Is it OK for private companies to profit from women's goodwill like this?

Would we approve less if it was a man gifting a kidney that would then be sold by a commercial company? If so, why?

And before anyone mentions NHS sale of some donated blood, the Blood and Transplant Service is not-for-profit and the money raised offsets some of the costs of providing free transfusions to those in clinical need. This is wildly different from selling eggs to people eho want children.

I didn't clock that bit. Good spot.

Socialism is about "for the many, not the few", it's literally the Labour Party motto going back for decades. Prioritising the harmful demands of a few over the needs of the many many women who need single-sex spaces is capitalist individualism at it's finest. You might self-identify as "anti-capitalist", but your arguments show that you clearly aren't.

I'd never heard of Sophie Grace Chappell but I'll read up on her. Thanks.

I'm not cross about anything. I find you all baffling, and yes, I find your views sometimes irritating and sometimes enraging but in terms of both issues around gender and reproductive technology/medicine, I'm confident that things are moving in a generally positive direction, even if the journey is not always smooth or straightforward.

I wouldn't expect to win over the gender critical any more than I'd expect to win over the pope on the issue of abortion. (On trans issues he's light years ahead of your lot.)

I presume those against egg donation, as it's non life saving surgery, are also against non-life saving transplants? Such as limb or face transplants. What about all non-life saving surgery?

I mean, we are all prepared to do things others see as immoral if we think they are moral. Otherwise no one would ever have an abortion, or have sex outside of heterosexual marriage, or eat meat. We all live according to our own moral codes.

I feel no need to justify myself. I'm here to distract myself at a painful time by engaging in debate. What anyone on this site thinks of my decisions is irrelevant to me. We are debating the ethics generally, not deciding whether or not I get to have donor egg treatment.