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?

It's disgusting. What 18 year old is aware of the not just physical, but emotional consequences of this? They won't even allow you to get your tubes tied at 18, yet they are asking you at 18 to donate your eggs to be a biological parent for someone else to adopt?!?

Things are getting worse and worse with womens rights. Women are seen as objects, commodities, just shit under the shoe of men. I am so fucking angry! We women really aren't worth shit in 2023. No rights to fair sport, no right to have privacy and dignity in a space just for females. No right to meet in a group as lesbian women. You can't choose to be sterilised but you can choose to be a parent for someone else at 18 and give up your rights as a mother. At EIGHTEEN! Did I say how FUCKING ANGRY I am? I want to return to the 80s and 90s and '00s, women had more rights back then.

You can't even choose to have your tubes tied at 18, so you are wrong and yes, we are in trouble! Agency to be an incubator, but not agency to choose sterilisation. SOME FUCKING 'AGENCY'!

Yes, and notice how in each single situation, the only one who benefits are men? A man can get off a rape charge. An 18 year old is too young to have agency to sterilise herself, for her own benefit. But she is old enough to be an incubator for someone else, with the physical and emotional health risks. Women aren't able to do anything positive for themselves, the laws are all geared to take from women. It's all to benefit someone else, never any benefit or choice for the woman. Strange how it's so one way.

Egg donation is a massive undertaking, and it will be made clear to anyone interested what a commitment it is, and what the risks are. We have no reason to think the medics will lie to volunteers about the dangers.

Oh my goodness, you are so incredibly naive I don't have any words. They can give you the basics but probably understate the risks or brush them off. I do not have faith in an agency whose sole existence is to increase numbers of donors, to accurately state the risks. I didn't come down in the last shower.

A previous poster on this very thread said her sepsis from egg collection was ignored, and around the same time, another woman DIED from sepsis, also ignored as told it's 'normal'.

I think that's pretty much proof that the risks to women are both understated and brushed off, and concerns not taken seriously.

And @MumblesParty A poster earlier in this thread has said they entered menopause after having her eggs harvested for IVF.

You really seem to have an 'agenda' about defending the SNP, to the extent to seem obsessed about it and deflecting any criticism of them, no matter how valid. Are you a member of the SNP by any chance?

And using 'hysteria'. Charming. Especially in this context. You seem to share the same contempt for women that the SNP do.

This is horrifying - I can’t help thinking it is partly the government gearing up for the time when they face lawsuits from trans-identifying adults who were given surgeries and hormones that made them sterile while they were still children too young to understand the risks. “But look!” the government can say “you have the right to free and plentiful surrogacy services, no harm done!”.

The scots voted for this. No one forced them. They deserve this woman hating government.

There is a shortage of bot egg and sperm donors - there has been since the offspring started being able to identify their genetic parents. So clearly the best thing is to encourage young adults who have no real understanding of the complexities of donation to get involved…

Scotland is a batshit place where rapists, paedophiles and misogynists can live it large. Woman hating has become a sport north of the border. To add to the list of other SNP achievements such as a disastrous education system, an NHS that worse than even England, legalized drug taking and highest drug deaths in Europe. It’s as if the weather up there wasn’t bad enough. They thought, how can we make this place worse.

Unbelievable.

Not only the risks and physical impact of fertility treatment, but what about the ethics around the psychological harm?

What happens to a young women who donated eggs so others can have children and later can’t have children of her own (this has happened)? How do you come to terms with that.

Fuck the SNP and their view of women as resources for men. Now they want us to be nothing more than gametes to be harvested. Fuck them.

That's interesting. I didn't know that, I wonder how well known that is. Maybe it doesn't make any difference to those who donate.

That's not right at all and ministers need a good shake for even entertaining the idea. Actually, the idea is complete bollox, that people can use age to excuse their behaviour. All the way to 25 🙄

However, young healthy women ideally produce
healthy eggs and there's no getting around that. If medicine could provide good quality eggs artificially then it would be on offer.

A donor egg baby is the child of the person who carries and gives birth to them. Not of the egg donor, and the mother does not adopt them. She is the biological, if not genetic, mother.

She will be the birth mother, but not genetic or biological mother. The baby won't have her DNA.

No, she will be the biological mother but not the genetic mother.

18 year olds can donate eggs, bone marrow, blood , organs

They are adults.

@MumblesParty and @SidewaysOtter - I know this absolutely isn't the point of the thread, but both your posts have made me laugh. Very witty!

Do the donors get paid?

It’s interesting that these young people are adults when it suits them and yet for sentencing purposes they are treated as lacking maturity and the new Scottish legislation encourages judges to give light sentences/consequences for crimes because of that lack of maturity.

Old enough to make life changing decisions on things that suit of course.

It's almost like the SNP don't give a damn about protecting women.

Glad we have this space in which we can have these discussions and see the patterns of behaviour emerging.

Thanks,@MNHQ.

An 18 year old will have around 400,000 egg containing follicles. A 35 year old around 30,000. Giving a dozen eggs will make no difference to "having enough to have their own children".

The information literally says "donating eggs requires careful consideration", so they're not just suggesting women do it with no information, not to just pop in and drop an egg.

Having friends who have donated eggs, they all had all the risks explained to them as part of the process - including long term. All went on to have children themselves afterwards (2 had children already and had another afterwards). All have been told of the children born from their eggs.

By saying you must be over 18 in the literature isn't "targeting 18 year olds".

And yet we get told that the menopause is because we run out of eggs...

Erm.. using a dozen of them will make no difference. I prevented ovulation / menstruation for 20 years, but it didn't delay menopause because it's not that simple.