Those opposed to surrogacy, what are your views on egg donation?

[wholeeverything]

I'm a gender critical woman with a high degree of skepticism about commercial surrogacy. I'm also facing the possibility of never having my own child.

Thinking hard about egg donation, I am conflicted about my own views about the ethics of it, from the point of view of the egg donor. What are your views? I am particularly interested in the views of those opposed to surrogacy. Do you see it as the same issue?

I feel like I cannot think objectively because of my own fertility issues. I am personally fine with the ethics of the child's rights, in that I would view it as similar to adoption with a child having the right to know their biological origins, and that then being something for me to decide if I am OK with at a personal level. Where there is full transparency, I don't see it as violating the child's rights.

But what about the young women selling eggs? Is it invasive, dangerous? Should it be viewed like surrogacy or selling an organ? Is it only considered by women in financial hardship, i.e. effectively coerced?

Would you really want to have a daughter using the egg of an infertile woman?

Putting aside the ethics of donation as concept I'd want to know a lot about how and why those eggs came to be donated and what risks I'm potentially passing onto my children and future generations. Is that information available to be shared?

That's certainly worth thinking about. Infertility might be caused (or exacerbated) by other medical conditions.

That said, potential egg sharers undergo health screening and they also need a reasonably good ovarian reserve, in order for them to produce enough eggs for two women. I suppose the ideal egg-sharer is a young, healthy woman who's seeking IVF due to male-factor infertility.

But are egg-sharers sometimes given higher doses of ovarian stimulation drugs than they would be if they were only undergoing egg retrieval for their own benefit? I've not seen any evidence of that, but given that private fertility clinics make a decent profit from egg-sharers, I do wonder.

@Chickadeeinme The other woman presumably halos has the benefit of a wanted child or the eggs wouldn’t be available for donation

But this is completely wrong - it is not the case that donors hand over what they’ve got spare at the end. There are no spare eggs - they would all be fertilised for the benefit of the donor unless she has agreed to donate some. And there is every possibility that her own IVF would fail whereas her eggs could result in children for others. You don’t seem to have any idea how either egg donation (or IVF) actually works, so your repeated defence of it is bizarre. Every egg given away by the donor reduces her own chance of a baby.

@VarioPerfect and you seem to think that the donor's chance of having a baby is somehow related to the individual eggs when in reality it is down to the individual biology of both the donor and the donee. Really, you and I are just going to have to agree to differ on this. I think people are entitled to assess their own risks and make decisions about themselves.

If it’s exploitative to pay women for the time, effort, physical strain, and risk of going through egg retrieval for donation, then what is it to ask women to do it without any payment? I find this attitude disgusting middle/upper class condescending towards women for whom a few thousand pounds/dollars/euro could make a meaningful difference in their lives. How many young women have taken up stripping, sugar baby, only fans out of financial desperation? How many single mothers would benefit from the ability to buy a new car? How many college girls who aren’t getting hand outs from wealthy parents could use a financial boost? A few weeks of injections, one afternoon in a doctors office, and a nice payout for their trouble. What is wrong with that? I really despise the people parroting that paying someone for their effort is exploitation. They haven’t thought it through in most cases and are just repeating something they’ve heard other people say.

I am also really irritated with all the lazy opinions about adoption by people with totally outdated fantasy ideas about adoption that aren’t grounded in modern reality. Spend some time looking into cross-racial adoption and the overwhelming evidence now that it’s been going on for decades shows that it is not emotionally or psychologically healthy for a child to be raised by a family of another race. So there goes the foreign adoption trend. Not to mention that many foreign countries which were adoption hot spots have drastically changed policy and it’s not so easy to do international adoptions as it was in the 80s and 90s. Do you even realize that international adoptions opens doorways to child trafficking rings? Okay so adopt domestically. Well, this isn’t the 1950s anymore. Teens have birth control pills and abortion is legal. If a young woman does get pregnant, it’s no longer a stigma. Fewer infants are given up now, far fewer, astronomically fewer. What does that leave? Especially here in UK (in the States the religious segments still encourage adoptions and they have the freedom of private adoptions where a birth mother can choose the adoptive parents ad they can support her in her pregnancy), in the UK adoption is almost universally children of abuse and neglect. Which is of course tragic and our hearts go out to them. But do a little reading on it. There is like zero support for most families who adopt children with attachment disorders, fetal alcohol syndrome, and other developmental and psychiatric problems due to in utero drug abuse, neglect, and trauma. Failed adoptions happen where the kids are returned to care because the family cannot cope. So all these people saying “muuuuh I would adopt before doing egg donation” are just spouting imaginary nonsense and havent seriously assessed what modern adoption really is like.

As with sex work and the other examples you gave, my disgust is levelled at the exploiter, not the exploited.

I have had ongoing fertility issues and was set to have IVF when I managed to have DD. I don’t like egg donation, I’m very uncomfortable at the thought of having children out there, somewhere, that don’t know me. Similarly, I wanted my own biological children, and if IVF with my own eggs didn’t work we would have stopped there. It’s not for me. I would have looked more closely at adoption (I know people who have adopted so am not completely unaware of the trials and tribulations).

If I had a partner who wanted to donate his sperm I think I’d end the relationship too.

There is health screening & not all donors qualify. Realistically people without infertility but with quite serious heritable issues, such as mental illness, go on to have babies every single day & no one stops them to ask if that’s a particularly good idea.

I also hope you apply the same logic to donated sperm or indeed choice of partner…

Having children isn’t a human right. Some people can’t. It’s crap but life can be crap.

Bad things do happen to people - like being unable to have children.

No one else's life should be endangered to change this though.

What are you on about? Of course the quality of the individual egg is important, and it varies between eggs produced by the same woman. As a result it is completely possible that a donor would donate an egg that would have led to her own baby if she had not donated it, but yet not conceive herself. If you’re trying to suggest that the donee’s biology helps the chances of conception, the opposite is true. I’ll say it again, if you have no knowledge of either the process or the science, I’d recommend not posting confidently about it as if this is a matter of opinion.

There is not enough status given to people who cannot have children. They are capable of living worthwhile, happy and fulfilling lives without children.

Because of the risks to that woman's health, life and future fertility.
Also all of your examples are of ways poor women are exploited due to their need for money and thats exactly what you are advocating for egg donation.
We are not advocating "altruistic" donation either as its also dangerous and exploitative of young women. We are saying that all egg donation is wrong.
If anyone doesn't understand what they are advocating its you. You think that its fine for rich women and rich men to put a desperate woman's health, life and future fertility at risk just because they want a baby and shes poor.

Agree. There's is an idea that somehow you have failed at life and you must not be fulfilled if you fail to have children.

I have a number of friends without kids even though I have one. This seems to be pretty unusual after you hit a certain age.

By that reckoning why not let them sell a kidney?

Adopter here. Imo not being able to get pregnant puts you in the situation where you have to decide what to do next. I have known many people in this situation. Some just got on with their lives. Others adopted - overseas or domestic - and have handled the challenges involved.

I do know someone who used a donor egg and it has not been straightforward. The child was biologically her husband's but not hers and she struggled massively to bond with her. As the child grew up she became increasingly estranged from the child, who only wanted dad. I've said it before - the egg is not just some piece of ingredient needed to get you what you want.

Infertility is not a good enough reason to do it imo.

Very good post, Arran.
I was privately adopted as a baby.

I’m concerned that the risks of egg extraction are downplayed to the women involved, as well as society in general. So I’m opposed on those grounds. As someone who had extreme difficulties conceiving and when I finally did get pregnant had a difficult pregnancy that has left me with health problems I understand how traumatic infertility is. It felt like my infertility and desire for a baby consumed me 😢

I don't think egg donation is any better than surrogacy. Worse in some ways. It's manufacturing human beings to order.

Re this, I share a lot of your concerns re donation. Re sperm donation, what do you think of known donations where the man will be involved in some way and no money changes hands? I know a lesbian couple who did this with a male friend. I can see potential issues with any kind of donation but at least the father is a known and positive figure.
The financial compensation aspect of clinical donations feels very uncomfortable to me. The physical effect of egg donations on the woman donating (and the woman carrying) seems worrying also.

Yes, I mean it's the same logic I've seen in articles investigating men going to Thailand to buy sex from poor women. 'We're helping them feed their families.'
The solution to economic injustice isn't condoning things that are fundamentally unethical (at least imo : I don't think intimate things like sex and reproduction should ever be commodified).

Definitely agree with that.

When JD Vance made his infamous comment about childless cat ladies, there were some interesting articles about the contributions of women who couldn't or didn't have children.

https://theconversation.com/childless-cat-ladies-have-long-contributed-to-the-welfare-of-american-children-and-the-nation-240199

https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/guest-voices/childless-women-cat-ladies-or-not-have-long-played-key-roles-catholic-church

https://www.premierchristianity.com/columnists/in-defence-of-childless-cat-ladies/18024.article

It's interesting some were from Christian magazines. I was born Catholic and I do have issues with it but at the same time I think there was value to the status monasteries and convents, and the wider Church gave to single and childless people.

'You can love the child, give it a veneer of your family's interests and values, but if it were born to and raised by the egg donor, it would be basically the same child.'

• this is a really good post and I agree with your main points ..but in the case of egg donation, if the woman's husband/partner's sperm is used, surely this would also affect the child's personality/interests ? I agree that egg donation is very ethically murky and I personally don't think it should happen at all.

I don't agree with it. I don't agree with artificial insemination, full stop. Take care of the children already in existence. Grow as a human and give a home to someone who needs it.