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?

You’ve changed your tune.

What are you on about? Some people on this forum are seriously confused and incapable of following a debate.

The delivery of my opinion first time round clearly offended people so I have explained it further because obviously I don't have some weird scornful opinion about adopted children. The core belief remains unchanged. Donor conceived children are not the same as adopted children. Egg donor mothers are not the same as adoptive mothers. Donor conceived children have not been given away. Donating an egg is not the same as giving a child away because eggs are not children. Being born to woman you are not genetically related to and spending your whole life with one family is absolutely not the same as being born to one family, then being removed and growing up with a different one. There is a whole host of separation issues and abandonment issued that come with the process of adoption that simply do not occur and are not relevant to donor conceived children.

Last night at the hospital, I searched high and low for evidence of this:

"Even though my daughter is not genetically related to me if you took a DNA test of her and 3 other children, and a blood test from me, you would know that she is the one I carried and not the other three."

And found absolutely nothing and lots to the contrary. Can you point to evidence of this claim?

Epigenetics is a thing. There is some debate around it. Essentially, what the gestational mother consumes and experiences has some influence over how genes are expressed. But there isnt a test that could link a gestational mother to the baby unless it came from her egg.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8762399/

It's called fetal microchimerism, babies DNA can be found in the mother's tissues up to three decades after delivery, perhaps longer but that hasn't been studied yet.

Sorry that was meant to quote @Lexibletheflexible . There isn't a straight forward DNA test no but if you took tissue samples from an egg donor mother you would find small traces of DNA from the baby she carried in a range of different tissues such as the brain, heart, liver and skin. These are genetically distinct cells that are not from the mother but are from the baby she carried. You would have to dissect brain, liver etc. tissues to find them so no there isn't a test a clear test like a DNA test but a DNA test on several children would make it clear which child the cells are from after they were recovered from the maternal tissues. Considering you would have to dissect parts of me to find them thats why there isn't a simple to test that can be done to show this link, but it exists all the same.

I thought there was a straightforward test because this is how they do the nipt for chromosomal abnormalities - using a blood test from the mother. Is it impossible later because the volume of DNA from the baby falls after pregnancy?

Mum.always gets more from.baby than baby gets from her, that is how I understood it. That is why resus negative mothers are recommended anti D and not all babies who could get rhesus disease because mum has antibodies do get it.

If this is intended to be a reference to me, I didn’t say any of that.

I queried your assertion that your child was “as much yours as your husband’s”. I didn’t say anything at all about children being bought and made to order? (Though presumably you did in fact pay for the treatment, so I’m struggling to see why that would be so offensive in any event).

And even if I had said that stuff, it would have no bearing on your own insensitive comments about adoption whatsoever.

I honestly don't know, I just know that the research specifically states the cells are found in tissue structures such as the brain and liver and blood isn't mentioned.

Also the fetal DNA/cells are integrated into the maternal structures but this doesn't alter maternal DNA so if you tested my DNA for chromosomal analysis you wouldn't find my daughter's DNA you would only find mine. The fetal cells become lodged in the mother's body and hang around alongside the mothers cells, they don't change the mother's cells they just coexist.

It's a concept often used to comfort mothers who miscarry because although their baby died in utero the mother will carry part of them for life so they are always with her. It's nice when science can be used to comfort grieving parents because it's often unemotional and cold in its black and whiteness, it's rarely an emotional discipline. The life sciences are fascinating and rarely straightforward, I could study them for a lifetime and never get bored!

Here you are saying my daughter will grow up knowing she was bought and made to order.

And yes I did buy an egg, but I didn't buy her. I created her with my husband. She is no more "made to order" than any other baby that was planned and deliberately conceived. "Made to order" is such an odd way of viewing conception.

Ah apologies - didn’t remember that comment. But I stand by it, and don’t agree that it’s offensive. As you say, most parents have their kids when they want them.

However, the difference with children conceived - in particular but not solely via surrogates, which was the context of my post - is that it for the procuring parties it’s a predominantly financial transaction that puts the needs and wants of the parents ahead of the needs of the child and the other humans that are used in order to provide you with that child.

You wanted a baby and you’re willing to brush aside any potential harm caused to the egg donor and child, because you believe that your desire for a baby can and should override those considerations. And even now you brush it aside by going on about epigenetics and tiny fragments of DNA and whatever, when really 50% of who your child is comes from another woman, who they are very unlikely to have a proper relationship with, and whether that woman’s future life and health and fertility has been compromised by her sacrifice really means nothing to you, because she’s signed some forms.

Yes 50% of her genetic makeup comes from another woman she won't have a relationship with. I notice you decided to ignore the research posted by another poster that found no negative impacts on the psychological long term well being of donor conceived children when their origin story is shared with them from birth and is an important part of who they are. We researched this ourselves extensively before proceeding, I would not have had my daughter if I believed being donor conceived would harm her. I'm not the selfish person you want to believe I am. If I believed donor conception was harmful I wouldn't have just plowed on anyway "because you believe that your desire for a baby can and should override those considerations".

The egg donor donated willingly, no one forced her. I intended to donate my own eggs once our IVF was finished until I found out they were useless. I know several women through infertility support groups who donated eggs after they had their children because they knew the pain of infertility and wanted to help others. None of them view any resulting children as their own children despite being genetically linked to them because of their own experiences. It also means all of the experiences I have with egg donors is of altruistic donation. You also can't be paid for donation in the UK and the financial compensation for expenses is meagre and really not enough to motivate anyone to go through the process for financial reasons. Donor conception is heavily regulated in the UK and I am satisfied that a woman who donated her eggs did so because she was happy to do so and not because anyone forced her to. If there were any long term harms caused to the donor by the donation process I of course would care, I'm not a heartless husk that just wanted a baby at all costs. The reality is I will never know because quite rightly we are unable to contact her but as someone who has been through several egg collections myself I know that the long term risks are small, of course not non existent but there are risks to everything. Like the minimal risk I took when I donated my bone marrow because I knew it was unlikely to harm me long term and I wanted to help someone.

You really don't know enough about me or my fertility journey/decisions we made along the way to make those judgements, they are just your assumptions, and offensive ones at that because you disagree with egg donation. Which is fine, I'm not trying to change your mind, it makes no difference to me if you approve of my choices or not. But you really should know that donor conception parents are varied humans like everyone else and not all completely self absorbed selfish twats.

I disagree strongly that egg donors are fully informed of the risks, that the risks are small, and that the financial incentives have no impact on people choosing to donate. I know someone who is literally dying because of the treatment that she went through to have her eggs harvested. I don’t believe that anyone should have the ability to purchase and use the genetic material of other humans. I don’t believe that anyone has the right to a child.

You can say that you do really care and that you did all the research but fundamentally you went ahead anyway and are still minimising both the potential impact on your child and also the impact on the donor.

Of course it suits you to see it all as a lovely altruistic process but that is not the reality for most. Clinics increasingly target young women for obvious reasons and for equally obvious reasons do not emphasise the downsides.

As for impacts on the children - your whole attitude as explained extensively on this thread is that genetics aren’t really a big deal compared to your breastfeeding and parenting etc, and that is presumably the narrative that you’re pushing with your child, who is quite likely to form an entirely different view when they are old enough to think for themselves.

I really appreciate you coming back on this and taking it on board. I’m sorry that you’ve found much of the thread upsetting and I can understand why you feel that way.

I’ve just caught up on the thread and only just seen, and responded to, your post actually. Sorry it wasn’t quick enough for you.

I had a friend who when starting IVF just said she would adopt if it didn’t work out. I don’t think generally people know what’s involved and what might have happened to the children and they’ll get a happy baby. She now has 2 children she can’t cope with at all anyway.

I have so many mixed feelings about it all. We shame people to be financially stable to have children, whilst their fertility dies away. Egg retrieval is invasive and dangerous, I don’t think it should ever be done just for donation. I was told I could donate eggs when I had IVF (didn’t have spares anyway) but I don’t think I could. In fact I would have loved another but couldn’t go through egg retrieval again as it made me so unwell.
Adoption has never felt like an option for me. I’ve know people who’ve done it extremely successfully (my friend adopted 3, she always knew she couldn’t conceive from being a teenager) and I’ve known one locally where it’s gone badly wrong. Child was damaged by her mother’s drug taking, started drugs herself. Parents and grandparents have moved away so the child can’t find them anymore as she was breaking into their houses non stop. The lack of support post adoption was what shocked me most and put me off.

She is already old enough to think for herself.

We went ahead anyway because we don't agree that the impacts are what you think they are. Not because we think the impacts are awful and don't care.

Out of curiosity do you condemn lesbian couples for using sperm donors?

I know two women personally (UK) who for financial reasons seriously considered donating their eggs. In the end they didn't go ahead with it. But the idea that women don't do it for financial reasons is simply untrue.

You must recognise that you’re biased in everything you’ve said because of what you have done. Of course you’re going to come on here and say there are no risks and it’s all brilliant. It would be weird if you didn’t. It also means that your point of view is meaningless.

But unless this is a drip feed and your child is actually an adult, no, they are not able to think for themselves and see beyond the story you’ve been telling them since they were tiny. Some day, perhaps when they have or want children themselves, they will look at it critically and decide how they feel about it. At that point, they may well share my views rather than yours.

In the UK it is illegal for women to be paid for egg donation.

This is boring @Chickadeeinme - you’ve said that on this thread, I’ve responded that there are financial incentives. Whether or not cash changes hands, women are effectively paid for their eggs and you know it.

Yes but there are financial inducements https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&client=ms-android-samsung-rvo1&source=android-browser&q=discounts+for+selling+eggs+fertility#lfId=ChxjMe

The age of my daughter is not a "drip feed" FFS you've just assumed she's a tiny child all along. And in the same breath admit even if she was you wouldn't care about her opinion because you're convinced she'll come around to your views on the matter at some point even if takes another two decades. Arguing the toss with you is pointless. My point of view is only as meaningless as yours because you have no experience of the issues you are commenting on.

Do you condemn sperm donors being used by lesbian couples?

An incentive is not a payment. Your credit card gives you reward points for spending - are they paying you to spend? Membership of various organisations gives you a discount on admission- are they paying you to join? AIUI the expenses that are covered during privately funded fertility treatment including egg donation of surplus eggs by women who have completed their treatment are very limited and certainly not enough to incentivise anybody to do it for the purpose of financial gain. Also you assume that all egg donation is done privately but you must know that fertility treatment including IVF is available on the NHS.

This is a ridiculous argument. Fertility treatment costs thousands of pounds. OR you can donate your eggs and receive it for free. The incentives are huge. You don’t know what you’re talking about but even a cursory Google would make it obvious.