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?

Both surrogacy and egg donation are gravely immoral, in my opinion.

I read this article yesterday, which is very moving and so hard to criticise this very obviously loving and devoted mother. But I couldn't not be struck by this bit, and the implication it gives of what she thought she was buying with donated eggs -

I called the IVF clinic. It turns out that, although I had signed up for the most expensive form of genetic testing when I started the journey, when something goes wrong, they can’t assure you of much. The clinic’s geneticist kindly told me I could always check in with the wellbeing team for a virtual cup of tea if that was ever helpful. I wanted to punch her in the face.

I also read that @MoreDangerousThanAWomanScorned - a tragic and very moving story. Would have been better for all involved if this “option” had not been available.

By this definition doesn’t that make surrogates biological mothers?

Yes, it does.

But don’t you think it’s going to be weird when your daughter asks you about when your periods started, how your birth was, menopause etc looking for some answers for herself.

I have literally never asked my mum these questions. I talk to women my own age about these things. It's rare for women to have the same menstrual, pregnancy, birth and menopause experience as their mothers. I have endometriosis and PCOS, my mother has neither. I had a hysterectomy last year, mum still has her womb and never had a period pain in her life. Her Gynae experiences are irrelevant to me. As are the ones of the other women in my family, none of them have had the same experience as eachother. It's almost as if we're all individuals and not clones of our mothers!

We have the egg donor's basic medical history so she knows that for when family history questions are asked in medical settings in future.

You've clearly never had the experience of being raised by people who aren't genetically related to you because if my mother's biological father turned up tomorrow and told me "I'm your real grandad " I'd so don't be ridiculous of course you're not. You're a stranger.

Family are the people you are bron to and knowing your whole life, not people you've never met and don't know. I feel a strong connection to my grandad, his parents (my great grandparents) who lived until I was 10 and taught me all about the war. They're my family, they were there from birth, they're not some randoms I just picked up along the way like a step parent. Many people who have grown up with families like mine feel connected to them and their histories, just because you can't imagine it, mostly because you've clearly known never experienced it or witnessed it in your life, doesn't mean it's not real. I've got around 20 seconds cousins and aunties and uncles knocking around, my nan was 1 of 14. I've never met them. Am I interested in them? Not remotely. They're just strangers, who cares that we share ancestors? They're long dead, I never knew them either.

It clearly pusses you off that donor conceived children see their birth parents as their real parents but that's quite frankly your problem. Of all the actual donor conceived people I've ever spoken to, they see their birth parents as their real parents, because that's obviously a really normal thing for a human to think.

I don't erase the egg donor at all, you've imagined that in your clear outrage and need for me to be a monster so you can be right. My daughter's egg donor is a part of who she is and has been talked about regularly since she was old enough to understand. It's the recommended way to raise donor conceived children and and long term research shows that they are not damaged by being donor conceived when they are raised with it being part of their story.

@SerenaCat93 I think you’re reading my posts differently to my intention. I’m not outraged, I’m curious. I’ve never spoken to anyone who has used egg donation before and I appreciate you answering my questions, I’m sorry they were intrusive. It’s just the more I think about it the more I can see the issues with it. But I absolutely recognise my privilege to not need to know about these things so please don’t think I’m trying to attack you.

I absolutely did and do speak to my mother about these things and I don’t think it’s unusual, you’ll often see on pregnancy threads people pondering about how their labours will be and their mum will be the first and closest insight they’ll have, my mum spoke to her mum as I know when my Granny did these things and my aunties, I don’t think it’s as unusual as you’re making out. But nor am I saying that’s the pinnacle or pivotal part of being a mother, just something I think that would be missed.

@SerenaCat93 you really have no idea how your child will feel when they are old enough to fully appreciate how they came into the world. You can throw out all the biased anecdotes you like about how genetics don’t matter, but there are plenty of people who could give you their own, opposite, anecdotes about how actually, who their biological/genetic mother is and why they weren’t raised by her really does matter to them.

Of course you hope that your child isn’t going to feel like that - and you are presumably raising them with the emphasis on what you have decided is important, but you don’t know.

You must recognise that all of your feelings on this topic are completely biased because you have benefited from it. I haven’t come across a single person who advocates egg donation who hasnt profited from it in some way. It’s dangerous for the donors and suboptimal for the kids. The only people on this thread who think it’s a good idea are those who have (or whose family member has) used it.

I don’t think you’re a monster and I’m not outraged, but your posts do show that you are utterly deluded eg in saying that the child is as much yours as your husband’s.

Apologies, I read your post as from Vario who has been on at me for several posts in quite a rude manner. I agree you're not outraged and apologies for being snappy!

It’s not rude to disagree with you or say things that you don’t want to hear. None of what I have said has been expressed in a rude manner.

I don't just think genetics don't matter because I have benefited from egg donation, I have spent several posts telling you the story of grandad and my family and how him being my grandad from birth and raising me is far more important to me than the man I am biologically related to but have never met. I see my granddad's parents and family tree as my own because they are the people who raised me from birth and taught me about the war and it's history. If my mother's biological father, whom I have never met turned up tomorrow and said "I'm your real grandad" I would say don't be ridiculous, you're a stranger.

It is this relationship with my grandad and great grandparents and all the cousins I grew up with because of them that made me feel that genetics are so irrelevant to family love and who you are bron to matters far more than who you are genetically related to that made me feel totally accepting of egg donation. Not the other way round.

We clearly are never going to agree and I don't really care. I only popped in to tell a PP that seeing the relationship between a donor conceived child and their mother, who they are born to and raised by, as the same as a step child, who was born to and raised by someone else, you didn't meet them until they were a few years old and they have two active parents and you are not one of them, is stupid. It's completely different from a logical point of view as well as an emotional one and just shows ignorance.

I'm really not interested in the rest of this debate, I made my choice and am comfortable with it. My daughter is happy and thriving.

@SerenaCat93 surely you must realise that how you feel about your grandad is pretty irrelevant to how a child might feel about their mother? Anecdotes that support your views are meaningless. I could tell you that I’ve got a friend who is donor-conceived and hates her parents for it, and you would just brush that off.

You’re also stretching the step parent analogy well beyond what another poster said. No, you’re not in an equivalent position to a step parent who comes along when a child is older, you’re in an equivalent position to a step parent or adoptive parent who has been there since the birth of the child. That is just a fact. The child will not have known any different, but there is no genetic link and never will be, however much you want there to be.

I’m sorry that you weren’t able to use your own eggs, but I’m much more sorry for the woman whose eggs you used, and the child who will have to process this as an adult.

I suspect our views on egg donation and surrogacy are similar. But I dislike personal attacks on individual posters.

It’s not a “personal attack” to respond to someone who is using their personal experience to justify something that I disagree with. This is a site for comment and debate. It’s inappropriate to attempt to silence that debate on the basis that it might make someone sad to be disagreed with.

I would call repeatedly telling someone they are not their child's mother and calling them delusional rude. You claim you have not been rude but I and other posters have disagreed. Your opinion doesn't matter a jot to me, I know I am my child's mother's and she knows she is my daughter. An angry strangers opinion doesn't change that.

You clearly have an axe to grind about this. That's not my problem. Rattle on at someone else about the poor woman who willingly donated her eggs or the donor conceived children who are now in their thirties and happily well adjusted. Lots of people hate their parents for all sorts of things, that doesn't mean no donor conceived people should exist.

Goodness I hope you don’t ever speak to adopted people in that tone about their origins, it’s really jarring to read.

Rather than inventing things, I’d suggest you go back to my posts. I have never said you’re not your child’s mother - I’ve only repeatedly said that you’ve got no genetic relationship with your child, which is correct, as you know.

I’m not angry at all, I’m just pointing out a series of facts which you (a) don’t like hearing and (b) have tried to minimise.

If anybody cares to read some actual research about the issue, there’s a literature review here: https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(18)31849-1/fulltext

I read that. As an adopter, I'm surprised that people still think that this is what adoption involves. Maybe in places like the US people don't want their babies but here in the UK adoption mostly involves children removed by the courts due to concerns around abuse or neglect. The birth mothers usually very much want to keep the children but are deemed to be unsuitable.

My children were not given up by people who didn't want them and it is perpetuating a false narrative around adoption to suggest that this is a feature of modern day adoption.

Yes really disgusting comment about adopted children and the birth parents.

It was a genuinely really horrible post wasn’t it. And read as oddly spiteful about adopted children.

Hopefully it comes from a place of total ignorance rather than nastiness.

And hopefully reading people’s reactions makes them think twice before they god forbid speak like that in front of adopted people in real life.

My younger daughter tells no one she is adopted due to some nasty comments she's had in the past.

So I finally got round to reading this and the article states the little girls syndrome is caused by a de Novo non heritable mutation. That means she didn't inherit it from the egg donor, the mutation was spontaneous whilst the embryo developed in the womb. That's why the egg donor was screened clear for genetic abnormalities, she didn't have any. So I don't really see why this is relevant as an example of why egg donor conception is awful. It's a tragically sad story, but being donor conceived has nothing to do with why this little girl is sick.

Saying it would be better for all involved if the girl had not had the opportunity to be born is not far removed from saying it would be better if everyone didn't have children incase they were disabled, which is of course disgusting. Any child could have had this condition, donor or not, and the fact she was donor conceived actually has nothing to do with her illness.

As explained in a previous post, the genetic mutation was de novo. She didn't inherit it from the egg donor, or the sperm donor. The mutation was spontaneous in the womb during development and the egg donor/sperm donor did not have it which is why it didn't show up on screening. This could have happened with her own eggs if they had successfully fertilised because the mutation was random and not inherited from anyone, so it doesn't really matter who her genetic parents were she is the sole owner of that mutation. So I really don't see why you think this proves your point the egg donation is bad beyond the fact all reproduction can go wrong, no one is guaranteed a healthy baby. But you seem to think the donor eggs specifically caused this illness, which is not the case.

I didn’t say it was anything to do with being donor conceived. However, she was, in fact, donor conceived, to a woman too old to conceive with her own eggs. Certainly, it would never have happened if egg donation wasn’t available.

It’s also about how the clinic gave her the impression - having taken a lot of her money - that they could guarantee a healthy child. These places do not have anyone’s best interests at heart, not the donors, not the children.

Certainly, it would never have happened if egg donation wasn’t available.

Well obviously the more you limit reproduction the fewer sick children will be born. Or is sick children being born only something that should be prevented when they are conceived in a way you disapprove of?

It’s also about how the clinic gave her the impression - having taken a lot of her money - that they could guarantee a healthy child

That's the way the article framed it though it was touched on very briefly. It is impossible to guarantee a healthy child and that is made clear on all content forms regarding genetic testing. A genetically perfect embryo can still end in miscarriage, pre term birth or develop mutations along the way. It's just less likely. The only thing genetic testing can rule out is hereditary genetic disease. That is the purpose of the test This was made perfectly clear to us and we didn't even ask for genetic testing.

It is literally illegal to misrepresent tests and guarantees. If she didn't understand what could and could not be guaranteed by the genetic testing by reading the information supplied by the HFEA, clinic information forms and consent forms she was wilfully ignorant, as some can be when they want something so badly. She seems very intelligent and capable of understanding the literature.

It could also be that the journalist writing the article didn't understand the limitations of genetic testing and the interview didn't touch on it enough for that to be included in the article.

But nobody is guaranteed a healthy child or one that will have healthy children. My two sons are neurodiverse (though otherwise perfectly healthy adults) and to the best of my knowledge neither their father nor I have any form of neurodiversity. One of my sons has three children, one of whom is AuDHD. My daughter is not neurodiverse, but unlike me she was unable to conceive naturally with her own eggs, and in fact unlike me she is going through menopause about ten years earlier than I did.