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've read a few stories where egg donation and surrogacy for close friends or relatives has ended up with estrangement - it often seems to be the recipient who gets funny, not the donor. I suspect the reality is different to how people imagined it would be tbh.

I think there's a element of insecurity in that from the receiptant and an element of not being able to separate from the donor.

There's a couple of posts that reveal that especially after having carried a baby, there's a difficulty in just seeing a donation as just cells. There's an element of responsibility too for some. And yes still connected to that baby because genetically you are and in part because you know that they have a legal right to know about you.

We need to be honest about this because it has implications. We know that 'not feeling quite like you belonged' often because of not looking the same (again verbalised multiple times on Long Lost Family).

We really shouldn't be ignoring this. It clearly is psychologically significant to at least a certain percentage of the population and that has ramifications.

I would and did say no to both sperm and egg donation and we adopted. Yes adoption is far from perfect and yes he was eight when adopted, but at least he knew right from the start his own history. And he existed and something needed to be done for him.
Others make their own choices, but having to go to such lengths to create a child that wouldn't be related to us anyway seemed absolutely bizarre when other options were available.

There's some interesting posts on Reddit from grown up children of sperm and egg donation who feel cheated, robbed, were lied to and like they were purchased.

That is awful, eighteen or nineteen I assume?
What were the doctors thinking…

You will see from my own post that I resonated with the idea of being the nicest and the kindest of the nice, kind, generous girls. But thankfully I didn’t take it any further.

How does society lead us to this idea of negating our own needs and own bodies in order to serve others?

Same, though the children were younger. They absolutely know their heritage. I am Scottish but live in England. The children are English. Neither feels any affinity with Scotland/being Scottish, unlike my Scottish friends' English children- they support Scotland at sporting events, wear tartan to weddings etc. I never pushed the Scottish element because it is not in my children's heritage.

Imo this sort of thing matters. I also didn't change their names.

But people often think these children are some kind of blank slate.

And so to egg donation - these children have a heritage which is jin most cases just tossed to the side to suit the adults. That's one of the reasons I can't support it.

I hate that women are encouraged by the surrogacy industry to undervalue and simplify/minimise their bodies and reproductive systems and role in reproduction - 'just like a cake ingredient' for ova, 'baking in a oven' for a surrogate pregnancy - 'just going to waste so someone might as well use it' like your unique genetic material is a some sort of too-good-to-go bag. It insultingly minimises the real issues and consequences of gamete donations, as well as being reductive and infantilising. In some ways it's the natural result of encouraging women to adopt a male mode of looking at their life, where the reproductive role is fairly external and often trivialised.

It's not a cake, an ova isn't a bag of flour you can just borrow from your neighbour and expect the same result, it's literally a version of half your genetic material, laid down in the developing ovaries when you yourself were an embryo still in your own mother's womb.

As well as the zygotic dna the eggs own support systems contain your mitochondrial dna, genetic information for the egg cells support system and a wealth of proteins, cell surface molecules that give specific immunological signals, which can have unpredictable effects in another woman pregnant with your egg due to either donation or surrogacy (which is likely a mechanism for the higher incidence of high risk and complicated pregnancies in these groups)

If you want a simple (and childish) analogy how about this instead: eggs are like diamonds, formed a long time ago, in the dark, under specific circumstances and conditions, and like diamonds there is a finite supply. There's a complicated process of obtaining them (via hormonal cycle, or drug simulation and retrieval ) and once obtained they require a long process of refining & processing (pregnancy) before they are a recognisable piece of jewellery.

Whereas the male production of gametes is more like the supermarket supply of lettuce - it's got a short shelf life and high turnover so you grow lots of it on a regular basis so there's always some fresh on the shelf to meet demand, only a small amount is integral to the meal, the rest is garnish or gets thrown out to make way for fresh stock. And it's always possible to get some more (or go to another supermarket ) when you need lettuce.

We need to stop regarding diamonds as lettuce 🤔
(edited because my spelling is shocking)

Im glad you put in the childish explanation because the science was going over my head.
i think you’d convince more women going down the impact on the child route. Especially the ones like me who probably would do it without a second thought for a loved one not knowing the risks.

I don't agree with it all. However, if I was desperate for a baby I might even though I think it's morally wrong.

Thanks for that, I was afraid I was going to get accused of being too flippant and trivial with that analogy 🙄

I sometimes get too technical with the science and language, but honestly physiology is fascinating and awe inspiring

This is my objection really. I think it's too much of a burden to put on a child, especially when the child isn't raised by anyone it's genetically related to. It never chose to be born and is landing up with almost certainly some very mixed feelings at best. I have no personal experience but imagine it's not pleasant to wonder who your bio mum is and whether she was just donating eggs to get money off her own fertility treatment or what. Feel exactly the same about sperm donation. But would be open to hearing what donor conceived children actually feel.

Everyone knows that fertility reduces in your mid 30s. You don’t need to own your home to have a child. I’m sorry that you are unable to have your own children. That must be really hard.

@EnterQueene horrifying that they allowed your teen dd to donate her eggs. It should be illegal for women under 25 to donate their eggs.

That's a wonderful choice to have made. Adoption is basically a non starter where I live. Family preservation with massive supports, fostering in extended family and then fostering with a view to final family reunification are the options. There is a tiny amount of international adoption but I would find it hard to trust the ethics of it. And the amount is tiny. Fostering is something I consider but it's an entirely different prospect, always aiming towards family reunification.

Tricky one. One of my friends was struggling with fertility and used egg donation. On the one hand, they have a son and are happy. On the other hand, there was probably a reason why she couldn’t get pregnant as she was not in great health and not young either, so pregnancy and birth was very complicated and she is now physically disabled. I don’t know if this outcome was more likely than normal and whether there are other non optimal outcomes.

I'm shocked at how blase some people are about the impact on the child born. Please do some research and take some time to find out what the experience is of adults who were conceived in this way. It's profound.

Agreed.

Tbh I thought that my views on this would get a harder time because I'm increasingly of the opinion that donor / 3rd party options are not child centric and are the commercialisation and commodification of parenthood which is all about rich adults with little concern for the long term consequences on donor/surrogates and the children themselves.

Whilst surrogacy is firmly still controversial, egg donation seems to be not even really questioned and sperm donation even less so - because there's many involved fathers quite naturally.

However as we are seeing there's the element of private companies cutting corners and people 'not getting the product as sold' as certain donors are seen as more desirable or any old donor will do due to a shortage and are sold mislabeled. There's then the issue of numerous siblings and still a sense of not fitting in because they look different.

And still this is brushed off as 'not important'. Of course it's important it's affecting a lot of people.

It's all packaged up as progressive and questioning this is conservative and dinosaur-like.

The reality is that anything that doesn't centre children first is regressive and anything that silences voices should get extra scrutiny.

The dynamic is unquestionably rich people exploiting vulnerable/less well off people. That's a massive issue and says a huge amount about what is happening.

Donation of gamete is also a lot easier to hide than surrogacy. So there's a certain taboo etc around it.

I completely agree. There are so many issues as you have laid out. Knowing where you come from is really really important and knowing you come from someone you likely don't know is massive. It seems like it's now framed a bit like online dating and people are just shopping for babies and oh it doesn't matter as long as you explain it to the child. I'm sorry to say that really naive and very disrespectful to the child. I'm sure there are some who say they don't mind but I have heard many accounts from people that really do mind.

I think many children born of these arrangements will say they do not mind. This is often because they love the people who have brought them up and do not want to appear ungrateful or unkind. But they are conflicted. They feel a sense of loss at not knowing their biological parents. They wonder what their “real family” would have been like and they wonder whether they have other siblings out there
It takes until adulthood before these issues are worked through - often with poor outcomes for the “child” - conflicted emotions, abandonment and commitment issues are the tip of the iceberg.

@wholeeverything I don't know which country you are in. However, I know a country in which domestic adoption is close to impossible. Yet I know several people in that country who adopted domestically or who could adopt their foster children. I also know that there are regularly babies with heart defects on a hospital ward left behind by their birth parents.

I think most adopters start out by thinking they will adopt a baby. My husband and I quickly realised that we would also be open to older children and ended up adopting primary aged children. I very much doubt I would feel differently about them if they were my birth children.

Unless your stepchild does not have a living mother, your relationship will be very different from the relationship with an adopted child.

I don't want to talk you into adoption. It is definitely parenting plus and there are many risks. But you sound like someone who has a lot to offer in terms of thoughtfulness and empathy. My view is that if you are open minded and truly want to be a parent, you will find a child - in an ethical manner.

I agree with you on international adoption.

I think egg and sperm donation, even without anonymity, can give rise to challenges for the DC.

’Donation’ for free or discounted fertility treatment isn’t donation.

This sounds awful to some, but I think that there is a whole fertility industry that works on the basis that having children is a “right”. I feel really sad for those who want to have biological children and can’t and I recognise that as a parent I have a privilege that would anger many in that position, but I also feel that there is something missing in a society that sees parenthood as an entitlement to be pursued at all costs.

And of course a society that promotes egg freezing and then donation from younger mothers when that didn’t work out rather than trying to create genuinely family friendly environments where people are able to start families earlier (two things have hampered the childless not by choice women in my life, being affordability and lack of commitment from male partners - society should be telling dads how much they get from marriage and teaming up, as the statistics are overwhelmingly in their favour!) is a very odd place.

Egg donation can be due to cancer or particular forms of fertility, but quite often is because IVF hasn’t worked in a woman who is nearing 40 and the suggestion is that a younger egg will work. Every so often on here I see a thread where a woman says that she had no idea she was wasting her fertile years - well, why not?! If the societal norm was for women not to consider a relationship in their twenties unless the man offered clarity and commitment and the most you could hope for as a bloke was to be in a non exclusive friends with benefits arrangement until something better comes along for the woman, you’d avoid all this crap - women have been told that they have lots of choice and they can be like men for as long as they like and it’s just not true unfortunately.

Depending on the ages of your stepchildren, the impact of bringing another child into the family needs to be considered as well. A child with serious medical conditions where the parents may have to spend a lot of time at the hospital or doing extra at home, or a child with emotional and behavioural issues from abuse will have different impacts on the family than the average baby. Not to say it can't be the right choice, and a wonderful addition to the family, just sometimes people say to adopt as if it is a straightforward option.

Yeah I fully agree with you on the whole. Not having conceived has if anything strengthened my views on surrogacy and many forms of adoption (versus family preservation measures where that's what the bio mother wants - so often absent in countries like the US or poorer countries). I think many people feel unkind telling gay men they shouldn't use surrogacy etc. but I feel I am as affected by that stance.