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?

Why is that relevant? It’s not.

If anything the targeting of women who undergoing their own treatment is worse as those women are likely to be more desperate.

I don't know. But you keep claiming that no one would do it for the money, yet here is a google search which shows that agencies do expect people to be thinking of doing it for money and still that isn't good enough?

Enough that several companies have decided it's worth taking out advertising.

So nobody has come up with evidence beyond advertising? No horror stories in the Daily Mail?

I'm getting very bored with this discussion. Some of the people on this thread have very clear ideas about and opposition to the whole process of egg donation. Some of us don't.

People on this thread have wrung their hands over the poor children deprived of their genetic heritage (they aren't - it's there for their information when they're old enough to make use of it). People have asserted that a woman who grows a baby in her womb, gives birth to it, breastfeeds it and spends its childhood nurturing it is not the baby's mother (she is in any meaningful sense of the word unless you think an egg carries the memory of the ovary it came from). People have compared donor-conceived babies to adopted babies (there is no similarity in life experience, and weirdly apparently this doesn't apply to sperm donor babies). People have claimed a direct association with cancer for which the evidence turned out to be decidedly mixed and certainly not applicable to all women who donate eggs, and avoided the fact that we all run a greater risk of personal injury every time we get into a car.

Others on this thread have offered their experience of this in their own lives which directly contradicts those assertions and those have been largely ignored. According to one newspaper report, there were 22,435 live births using an egg donor from 1991 to 2021. It seems to me that what we have here are 22,435 children growing up in a family in the last thirty-five years and there have not been even hundreds of reports of all these ill effects coming to pass. I'm not saying none of these children or parents have encountered difficulties of some kind - but so has any child born because that is the nature of life and not at all specific to children born from this procedure.

I suggest to those who oppose what is a perfectly legal procedure that they lobby Parliament to have the law changed. There are people in Parliament who will agree with you, and there will be people who oppose you, and that's how the law works in this country.

I'm out of here because we're just retreading old ground and nobody has yet come up with any argument that makes me feel differently about it.

Well at least you have learned that there IS payment or donors in England.

Btw I found this. It is from when they were thinking about offering payments and it was done specifically to attract more egg donors - so the whole scheme is built on the belief that payments are an incentive.

Interestingly it alo says that egg fonation is illegal in countries like Germany, Japan and Norway.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC529360/

This is a partial summary that inaccurately summarises the points that I and many others have made, and in that sense is completely in keeping with your contributions to the thread.

The only people who have contradicted any of the assertions against egg donation are people (or the family of people) who have used donor eggs, ie the beneficiaries. Obviously you’ll say it’s fantastic in those circumstances, but that’s irrelevant. Just as irrelevant would be someone defending organ harvesting because it meant their child could survive kidney cancer, or perhaps a white man saying that actually there aren’t any issues with equality in society because they’ve done really well on their own merits. It’s exactly what you would expect them to say, from a position of extreme bias, but that doesn’t make it right.

What would be a relevant counterpoint to points I’ve made would be the views of a donor-conceived person, or an egg donor - ie, the people who have the potential to suffer negative consequences speaking positively about their experience. But no one in that position has contributed.

You say that “nobody has yet come up with any argument that makes you feel differently about it”, and I think you are 100% right on that, and that they never will, because feeling differently about it would require you to accept that the circumstances of your grandchild’s conception were exploitative. You’re obviously not prepared to do that, no matter what anyone says, or what you read, as you’ve shown through your absolutely bizarre attempts to minimise and deny the obvious financial element to egg donation in the U.K.

We all know it’s legal, by the way.

That is an excellent post, VarioPerfect.

The fact is that donor conception, whether sperm or egg, operates for the benefit of the adults. They are trying to do the same with surrogacy.

I would say it's like adoption was about 40 years ago.

But adoption changed and became much more child focused. There have been plenty of attempts by Gov to eg speed things up for prospective adopters, be less intrusive in questioning, simplify the approval process - all the things that prospective adopters want - but they never go anywhere, because they are not in the interests of the child.

This is where donor conception falls down imo. There is no one batting for the child. There is little vetting of the people using donor dna and little exploration of how this could affect them, never mind the child.

Instead, they are told that giving birth is what matters. The dna issue is largely parked.

Why not put the child first and tell them about the donor from day 1. Why wait til 16? Who is this benefiting?

The Gov consulted about extending contact between birth families and adopted children and this is only going in one direction- more contact.

Why aren't children born through surrogacy or donor dna being given the same?

Totally agree. For what it's worth I feel the same about sperm donation. In the old days a straight or lesbian woman might've asked a trusted friend who may have wanted some level of contact with the child at least as a kind of uncle figure. These days it's become so commercialised and medicalised that an adults so called right to have a child trumps everything, even the rights of that child and v little thought is given to how it will affect them. I see American therapy culture here too where all can only be positive vibes and we just focus on the positive and actively push out the negative or questionable then everything is brilliant. It's very jarring and strange to see.

It's also very individualistic and consumerist.

There is little vetting of the people using donor dna and little exploration of how this could affect them, never mind the child.

This is simply not true. We were subjected to "for the benefit of the child" investigations before we were even allowed regular IVF let alone before we proceeded with donor eggs which is offensive because nobody vets fertile people. Why are the infertile held to higher standards and judged as to whether they be allowed to have children or not? Genetic counseling is mandatory before proceeding with any donor conception and there is research on the long term psychological effect of being donor conceived on children up to adulthood which has been shared on this very thread and repeatedly ignored yet it found no adverse effect on psychological wellbeing of the children or their familial relationships as long as they were informed of their donor conception at a young age they grow up with it being part of who they are not dropped on them as an adult.

I absolutely stand by the fact donor conception parents don't have their children believing they are harming them and do it anyway because they don't care. It's simply not true or normal to think parents don't give a shit about the impacts of their choices on their children.

See, that's the sort of thing some prospective adopters say: "why should we be investigated when most people just go and get pregnant"? It's often taken as some kind of personal insult.

I didn't say there was no vetting, but it's minimal, as with surrogacy.

But anyway my main point is about the insistence on not telling the children about the donors. It makes no sense to me when the Gov is completely on board with the importance of keeping up with genetic connections for adopted children.

It makes sense that it's different because they are different situations.

An adopted child was born to a family, raised by them for a while then were taken to live with a different family, being taken away from the people you've known since birth is obviously difficult and a massive upheaval so it's a benefit to keep them in their lives. There's also grandparents cousins etc. that they already knew and should be kept in touch with.

With donor conception there is no removal from the birth family, no upheaval and no 'past life' to keep in touch with. There's just the family they're born to, that's it. Most donor conceived children are genetically related to one of their parents so are growing up with their relatives and heritage whereas adopted children aren't related to either of their adopted parents.

Donor conception is also a complex concept for a small child to understand and they would find it confusing to have people they don't know regularly visiting them and being told they're family, when to a small child family is the people the live with and have always known. When they are old enough to understand then they have a few years to decide if they want to meet their donor or not. Some do some don't.

I'm not talking about people visiting. Most adoption contact is through letters. I'm talking about just knowing your genetic roots.

My younger daughter was removed at 6 months. She doesn't remember anyone but the Gov still thinks it's in her interests to know about them.

Babies removed at birth suffer separation trauma that affects them long term even though they can't remember the separation of the mother they were separates from. At six months old a child would definitely feel trauma at being separated from their mother who they had bonded with for 6 months as their primary care giver, even though they can't consciously remember it. Of course it's to her benefit to keep in contact with her mother after being separated from her, it may go some way to healing the separation trauma for her to still be involved in some way.

My daughter was severely neglected. She had zero bond with her birth mother, who practically ignored her, to the point she almost died. And still the research shows it is better for her to know about her birth mother. She isn't remotely interested in her birth mother and never has been and I think that's because she always knew about her. If she had been a secret on the other hand, I'm sure she would have been intrigued.

I recommend you read some Reddit threads that have answers from donor conceived children. I don't want to copy and paste here as it feels wrong to without consent. There are many posts by people saying things like they had been told since v young but didn't really understand it until adulthood and found it very troubling and very difficult to reconcile and felt robbed and angry about not having medical information and not having the same rights as people who do know their genetic/bio parents and they are very upset that they have been essentially bought. They also express guilt at having these feelings which they hide from the parents that brought them up as they don't want to hurt their feelings.

I've seen a few such posts (although not on Reddit). Whilst concerning, they are are not necessarily representative of donor-conceived adults because:

1. You are far less likely to see posts from those who don't really think about their donor-aided conception or who aren't fazed by it. Personally, I find it surprising that some people have no interest in their genetic origins at all, but some people genuinely don't!

2. How someone feels as a teenager or young adult (or after a traumatic event such as a bereavement or divorce), is not necessary representative of how they will feel for most of their lives.

She didn't have zero bond with her birth mother. Babies are born with a bond to their mother. They start forming memories at six months gestation, at birth they already recognise and prefer their mothers voice and smell to other peoples. Their mother is the first person they know and being separated from them even immediately at birth is traumatic for the baby. I would imagine being ignored by their mother at birth is as traumatic as being taken away from them by another person because the outcome is the same, the absence of their feelings of safety with the first person they knew. There is a reason that newborns will often only settle for their mothers, they are born already knowing her. Research has confirmed this and it's routinely explained to pregnant women, I'm surprised you deny it's reality. Of course the bond continues to build after birth or in your daughter's case, it doesn't but it already exists at birth and cannot be denied as irrelevant. It's the whole reason people argue that surrogacy is wrong.

I think you have misunderstood my point. I was responding you to your point about adopted children wanting contact with the birth family they know in person. I am just saying that not all adopted children remember their birth mother and want her in that way. Of course it was awful at the time for my daughter to be so rejected and yes it has caused all manner of problems.

But that is not the iissue we are debating here. We are tslking about identity and right to know your genetic origins.

My point is that the Gov deems it important for adopted children to know this information. Even if you are whisked away from birth, sent live with foster carers and don't see your birth mother ever again as she is deemed too dangerous, you will still be given a lot of information about her and help to understand your background.

This is because research shows that people need to know their origins.

It doesn't remotely bother me that we had to take our children through their life stories. It didn't affect our relationship. They were learning about people they didn't have a clue about, but it settled any need they might have had to know.

This is what I don't understand about surrogacy or egg donation, how it can be seen as vital for adopted children to know who their genetic parents are but denied to donor and surrogacy conceived children.

And it's purely to benefit the adults.

And many children may not query their origins. They have been brought up in a system which prioritises the parents. I would say the same is largely true of adoption but it is changing. This is largely due to demands from adult adoptees. Adopters don't necessarily like it, just as parents who used donor conception don't like it. But the children will eventually force change imo. The Gov will apologise - it is such an obvious mismatch to what happens in adoption. And remember, often the stories about birth family in adoption are truly awful and still the children are told and even then research shows it helps.

I think the important take to listen to is the views of adults who were born by egg donation. What are they saying about it?

Bear in mind the majority of (opposite sex) parent couples who used eggs and sperm from other people to make their family, then don’t tell their kids that fact.
Solo parents or lesbian or gay parent couples may feel that they have to say something to explain the fact of a child, so they may reveal this fact about egg donation being involved. or may not. It’s rightly not mandatory for anyone.

OP is being very thoughtful about this and personally I agree that it’s really important to learn everything possible from the harm that has been done to some kids in adoption where their needs have not been put above the needs of the adoptive parent, including around secrecy and concealment.

Obviously concealment about anyone’s origins is an awful thing for anyone to discover by accident .These facts tend to emerge in a period of emotional crisis- just to make things worse. Like finding out information while sorting out papers after a parental death, or if it is disclosed in a heated situation like parental separation or divorce. Just as happens with adoption. Very damaging.

OP is planning to do it differently of course which is great, but just as a word of warning some parents do say it really can be hard for them to find the words to tell their kids, so they keep putting it off, especially if they fear rejection from their kids. So it can feel very emotionally complicated even to share this basic information. Yet we live in a time when people give each other genetic test kits for Christmas and birthdays. So it’s not a safe secret to try to keep, either.

Even when children are told the truth from a young age it is not simple or without problems. There are many adults who were donor conceived who are very upset and I agree with poster who suggested they will be the ones to force change so that they are treated properly rather than accessories. It's not a fairy tale, it's someone's life and you don't get to dictate their reality by imposing your positive vibes version.

The fact that you think donor conception parents see their children as "accessories" tells me all I need to know about how irrelevant your opinion is on this matter because of the total and complete lack of experience or understanding of these families. Although it was already obvious that you didn't have a clue from your previous comments and not being able to tell the difference between the life experiences of a donor conceived child and an adopted child.

This is what I don't understand about surrogacy or egg donation, how it can be seen as vital for adopted children to know who their genetic parents are but denied to donor and surrogacy conceived children.

That’s not true of children conceived via donation at licensed UK clinics though. They can request identifying information about their donors once they are 18, including their last known contact details.

Yes, it’s true that some parents (especially heterosexual couples) might not tell their children that they were donor-conceived. There are also children born as the result of affairs who aren’t told the truth about their origins. It would be difficult to legislate against this.

Yes but they have to wait til 18. Why? Why wasn't it decided that they should be told from much earlier? 18 years of zero information and all to benefit the adults.