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?

I am skeptical about it. Conditions and preponderance to them are in some cases inherited.

Surrogacy is a no-no for me.

I'm not saying that all surrogacy should be banned but I think commercial surrogacy should be. Some US surrogacy contracts wouldn't be out of place in The Handmaid's Tale. I also think that UK surrogacy law should be tightened up rather than relaxed.

I'm not completely opposed to egg donation, but there are definite ethical issues especially when women donate their eggs for financial reasons (including for free or reduced IVF treatment of their own).

I adopted. I don't quite understand why you say it isn't an option tbh. What i would say is that it isn't the same as having your own baby. But you could do foster to adopt and be placed with a baby.

Children available to adopt have gone through varying degrees of early trauma and may have conditions like fetal alcohol syndrome, genetic deletions, inherited stuff like, be born drug addicted.

It isn't just plan B if you can't have your own child - it is about putting that behind you and looking at helping a child who needs a lot of support to grow up.

Nowadays there is an expectation that you will stay in touch with birth family. You aren't sailing off with a child as such.

International adoption barely exists any more and is fraught with issues.

Anyway, I was in a similar position to you. My gp tried to encourage me to use egg donation and I said no and went down the adoption route.

I wasn't desperate to have a baby and wasn't mega keen on getting pregnant tbf - I know that's a big deal for some people. So it was relatively easy for me to say no.

My mother and I had an awful relationship and i was biologically hers - i didn't want to feel unattached to my own child and felt that carrying someone else's genes would be a big risk for me not attaching to the baby/disliking the baby, when my husband would have a different relationship, as thebaby would be his.

I do know someone who used donor eggs and this is exactly how she feels about her child. Her husband and the child are connected in a way she and the child aren't.

I felt that adoption was more honest about the lack of genetic connection. I do think that it matters and feel it even more strongly since adopting.

I just think we shouldn't muck about with dna and children's rights to stay with the people who are genetically related unless absolutely necessary. Adoption is where it is absolutely necessary but that doesn't necessarily make it easy.

Egg donation is generally kept quiet, so it is a huge secret from other people, and that's not easy to deal with.

Re the egg donation risks to the donor, those do exist. And your child can trace this person at 18. That is a bad age to start finding your "other" family - which is one of the reasons why adoption practice is so focused on the child knowing their heritage. But this doesn't happen with egg or sperm donation. These kids have no idea who they come from until they are 18 then suddenly they know. It's done for the benefit of the adults, not the children, whixh is just awful imo.

Sorry, I'm rambling a bit now. Good luck with your decision.

I think there are separate ethical issues at play and I don't know to what extent they interact from my perspective.

I don't agree with egg or sperm donation as I think the ramifications on the children born are too large

I also don't agree with egg donation as I think it's impossible for it to be done in a way that doesn't exploit the donor but even if it didn't, that brings me back to my point above.

It has to remembered that IVF and sperm and egg donation aren't all that longstanding - from the perspective of the children born from it. The oldest of them would only be in their late 40s I have personal experience and I can only comment that the views I held as a child are totally different from those I hold as an adult. As I have aged, my views on family have changed and I think this applies to many children who are born with donor assistance or adoption. With adoption, society is trying to assist a child who exists and who exists in difficult circumstances. With donor assistance, society is allowing children to be created without any real evidence as to the long term impact this has on them.

Not knowing your biological parents, regardless of how lovely life may have been, has an impact. The trauma that it can cause may not be felt until that child is older, possibly into adulthood, and that doesn't seem to be a consideration for many who use the donor route. The same applies for an egg donor as by nature many of them are young - we're not really far enough down the line to understand what trauma, if any, exists for women who donate and then have to deal with the realisation that they are biological mothers. Understanding a hypothetical is very different from experiencing the reality.

And finally we have to factor in human nature and the corruption seen on the part of some sperm donors and IVF clinics. They may be few in number but hundreds of donor conceived children have been affected by finding out they are 1 of dozens of siblings, that the wrong sperm was used etc.

Egg donation in the UK has to be altruistic and clinics can only pay a small inconvenience allowance. I donated eggs to my partner and would have considered egg sharing, but didn't have to make that decision as I was slightly too old to be eligible. To be honest though, the discount on the IVF treatment was not huge; it would have helped with the costs of having to travel to the clinic, stay overnight, have someone take time off work to drive you home, etc. I didn't find the procedure particularly difficult or uncomfortable, and had many more eggs than I was able to use. I would be hesitant to use donor eggs from a country where it was less heavily regulated, e.g. my clinic were very careful not to let me get overstimulated, but I can see how they could have taken slightly more risks to get more mature eggs.

DS1 was born in 1978, the year Louise Brown was born, so I remember the event very well. For the younger ones on here I don't know if you can appreciate just how this world-changing event felt at the time. I was 24 at the time so have spent my adult life accepting the many ways that infertile couples can have their own children

I also remember Kim Cotton, the UK's first known commercial surrogate mother, and the fuss that that event caused - I personally didn't have a problem. What I do have a problem with is couples, usually gay men, who get an egg from one woman, then transplant that into a second woman who gives birth - creating two degrees of separation for the child

As for egg donation: I've mentioned before on MN when I worked a few days in a private clinic that had a branch in a poorer area of the country wherein women could exchange treatment for egg donation. A very happy woman, aged around 50, was leaving with her baby she'd just given birth to, and her considerably younger husband - I felt uneasy, and thought well I hope the egg donor is one day just as happy

I had no trouble conceiving so am mindful that some women have to take a different route

I have massive problems with the way egg donation is done in the uk particularly in Scotland with the Scottish government targeting 18 year old girls for their eggs, and the deals that clinics offer women to get free storage for their eggs if they donate half of them.
The risks to the "donors" health and future fertility means i can get behind donor eggs.

Ooh it's an interesting question OP. I would bear in mind that you're likely to get a very specific view on this board that might not reflect wider societal views (no offence meant, I do love this board!).

I know most on here are against commercial surrogacy, which I agree with.

However for me personally, I'd actually find it easier to be a surrogate for a close friend or family member than to donate my eggs ... as long as it was their egg/sperm and therefore genetically their child. I don't think I'd be able to donate my eggs as I wouldn't be able to stop thinking of the child as "genetically mine".

However I'm not necessarily against other people donating, or receiving, eggs or sperm. So it's just a personal view.

@Arran2024 AFAIK, in contrast to the UK, some countries, including where I live, don't really allow for adoption of infants except through the mother's choice - which almost never happens now where women have reproductive choices pre-birth. In cases of neglect, abuse, addiction, fostering is the norm. So, domestic adoption is extremely rare except by step-parents, extended family members or long-term fosterers.

Fostering is something I would consider but I don't think I'd enter into it thinking adoption may come at a later point, because it may not.

I really appreciate your perspective and hearing about your choices. Please do send on anything you think would be useful to reflect.

Why is you being gender critical in any way related to your views on surrogacy?

@DisappearingGirl thanks - I suppose I specifically asked on this board because I tend to agree with people here ;-) It's really tricky. It is interesting to me that there isn't consensus here like there is around surrogacy.

They are both issues (unrelated issues) in which I - and afaik many Mumsnetters - disagree with the mainstream, liberal 'feminist' point of view. Egg donation is another issue in which there is a liberal consensus, and I am unsure of my point of view.

Firstly, I'm really sorry you're in this position OP, especially given what you say about adoption not being a realistic option where you are. However, I do think there are serious ethical considerations about egg donation.

I looked into egg donation when I was younger - there was an advertising campaign for donors that was aimed at women at my Cambridge college when I was doing my PhD (which I now think is icky in and of itself as a choice of places to get what they presumably saw as 'good eggs' from). I felt really blasé about the ethics and potential emotion of it in a way that seems astonishing to me looking back now, much older and with the experience of a very difficult journey to having my own children. What really shocked me, and put me off, at the time was how invasive and lengthy the process was. I think I had an idea from media etc that it was obviously a bit more involved than donating sperm, but basically equivalent. I was obviously very naïve about it all round, but I think lots of people don't realise even now how completely incomparable they are and how much it's asking women to do to do this 'altruistically' and so how unlikely this is.

The advertising around it remains irresponsible - I just googled 'egg donation uk' and the first result I get tells me 'Become an Egg Donor London - Earn £750-1000'- the text underneath it tells me the money is 'compensation', and the actual website notes that 'Compensation for egg donation procedures is strictly regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). It is illegal to pay an egg donor in the UK for anything other than their expenses. This means you will receive up to £985 per egg donation cycle,' but I think they're certainly sailing close to the wind in terms of the rules about not paying for egg donation, just making a payment for expenses in terms of how its advertised to donors.

I do also think it's telling that there is no equivalent procedure allowed that isn't limited solely to women's bodies - there are much stricter rules around all other kind of donations, e.g. organ. You can claim expenses as a kidney donor, but there are strict rules to ensure you only claim actual expenses. You can't just offer people a flat fee as 'compensation' for kidney donations, because that is seen, correctly, as being basically just a payment dressed up as expenses. I think it's interesting that we can see this ethical problem of having explicit 'expenses' payments that aren't related to your actual expenses for everything apart from reproduction.

I'm OK with true egg donation.

I am not in favour of 'egg sharing' though I can see why women would do it, or any form of selling and that involves compensation not linked to real expenses.

It's potentially dangerous for the woman and so I don't approve.

I think it's OK as part of fertility treatment (I believe that you can donate some of your harvested eggs sometimes for a discount), because if you've got spare then they weren't going to all be used by you anyway, and I don't like waste. Also, you'd have been going through the process anyway.

But paid-for egg donation from strangers is just another commoditisation of women's reproduction.

My hesitance with egg donation is as you say, it is still financially motivated. One of my friends donated eggs in the process of having IVF herself because it meant that her IVF only cost her £500, it was a huge reduction in price. She openly admits if she hadn’t needed IVF and so hadn’t had to pay that price, there is no way she would have turned up one day and offered to donate some eggs.

I think most women would be in that same place. Not many women just decide one day to donate eggs, it is almost always financially motivated and so the financial element that makes me uncomfortable with surrogacy (although there are many other surrogacy elements that make me uncomfortable) is still there with egg donation.

I think I actually feel more inherently uneasy about giving women a discount on their own fertility treatment if they donate eggs. It makes 'sense' in terms of process and not exposing the woman to extra risk on a physical level, but I'm honestly not sure I've ever been more vulnerable than when I was going through fertility problems (I suffered from recurrent miscarriage), and have certainly never been more desperate. I feel that the consent of a woman who can only afford her own fertility treatment if she donates at the same time could be very coerced indeed. An analogy would be something like telling someone they can only have a liver transplant if they donate a kidney to someone else at the same time (they're being opened up anyway, after all!) - and I think we can all see how little 'choice' that really gives.

I was an altruistic egg donor. I didn't get paid. It wasn't a super fun process but not traumatizing. It wasn't as a part of IVF. It was a choice I made to help a friend who I'm not in touch with anymore (we moved to different cities). She was a good friend but we weren't incredibly close.

How was that not altruistic?

I think it's OK as part of fertility treatment (I believe that you can donate some of your harvested eggs sometimes for a discount), because if you've got spare then they weren't going to all be used by you anyway, and I don't like waste. Also, you'd have been going through the process anyway.

But what about the resulting child? It's not like donating bone marrow or blood

The 'discount' bit is poorer women donating eggs in exchange for treatment - that's commoditisation is it not

I need to learn more about egg donation. It wasn’t until fairly recently that I learned that surrogacy is riskier than an average pregnancy because of the placenta mismatch. Any doubts I had about the ethics of surrogacy were put to rest when I learned that.

While egg donation seems like perhaps it is low risk enough, I worry that I just don’t know enough to understand.

No one actually knows enough to understand, we don't have the data on long-term outcomes for donors: https://www.healthpolicypartnership.com/why-a-lack-of-data-on-long-term-impact-may-deter-potential-egg-donors/

I think you need to centre the child here.

Millions of years of evolution have gone into human beings nurturing their own genetic off spring and being nurtured by someone genetically related to them. A child born of a surrogate egg will lack this connection. And the experience of many adoptees - even those placed at or near birth - is that they grow up with a huge sense of loss, not knowing who they are. This causes all sorts of issues in their lives. .

Pregnancy via surrogacy is about the desires of the parent who wants a baby/child. Little thought seems to be given to the person that baby/child becomes.

100% this.

Lots of clinics offer really big discounts or even free treatment if you donate some of your eggs, for some women that discount is the only way that the treatment is affordable and so actually although it’s advertised as an option it’s not a case of genuinely freely given consent. If the discount did not exist, most women would not just turn up and offer to donate.

Sorry I didn't realise you don't live in the UK.

I don't want to be a downer on what might be your only chance at having a family.

My thoughts are based partly on the fact that I feel a huge connection to my ancestral past - it is important to me, and a big part of who I am. And I just feel that people overlook this and treat the egg like a mere component.

Some children won't care, especially as they will have probably been brought up with only positive tales of egg donation. But others will care.

And that could be overcome if the baby got info on the egg donor from birth. But they have to wait until they are 18 in the UK and in some countries, they can never find out. I find that really bad - if egg donation was in the interests of the child, they would get this info. But it's all about the adults, so they don't.

And so I can't support it. The industry is about making the dreams of adults come true - it isn't based on the welfare of the child.

And egg donation is a pretty euphemism to describe selling your dna, which is what it is. Maybe we should be more up front about what it means.

These days, egg donors are highly screened in many countries. You presumably wouldnt beusing one of the UK donors being paid a pittance - there are donors in the US being paid as much as $40k for their eggs (super models, harvard graduates etc) and basically you are paying market price for what you want.

This is where prospective parents are paying for athleticism, super intelligence, beauty. And you may not care, and you may go for the cheapest option which is pot luck, but the donors will still have been screened to an extent and probably paid according to demand.

So then you have the expectations of the child versus the reality, which is what every parent has to come to terms with, but it can be more difficult if you thought you were getting X (via the egg fonor) and you don't. Plus all the attachment issues of loving a child where you have no markers.

I used to have a book on step/foster/adoptive parenting which covered this in a lot of detail. There is a thread on the Adoption board atm about not immediately falling in love with your child - this is something people are often reluctant to discuss and there is an idea that all mothers adore their babies, and that you will automatically adore a baby even if it is not related to you, and imo it's not necessarily as easy as that.

I did mention the issue of it being the husband's child and not yours, and that can bring its own issues. If you split up, where does that leave you (i don't mean legally)?

Final point I want to make is an unusual one. The people most in favour of egg donation are evangelical US Christians and the reason is that they regard the left over eggs (and embryos) from IVF as akin to aborted babies and they see it as an act of salvation to give those eggs life, rather than seeing them discarded.

So anyway, just some thoughts!

My biggest issue is with the secrecy of it. When I adopted, I felt like acreal imposter gor years. I still feel it a bit 25 years on x

@Arran2024 Thanks for all the reflections. I am a full time step-parent and fully understand all of what you are saying. I adore my family and my choices, but it is different, and it should not feel unethical to say this, as you say. This is another reason why I wouldn't consider adopting an older-than-infant child. I feel I have already. I am unsure if I also feel that way about egg donation, but it's certainly something that's swirling around my mind. Thanks again!