Egg Sharing

[Meralia]

Hi everyone,

It’s my first time posting on this board. I’ve seen a few threads relating to surrogacy and all the surrounding issues with regards to the exploitation of women, but something I’ve been thinking about recently is egg sharing for IVF. I had IVF with my last child (didn’t egg share though as I had the funds and am on the end of the upper age range for acceptance).

I’m sure most people know how egg share works but just in case, if you offer to give half of your eggs to a recipient at the clinic you get your ivf cycle for free (or heavily subsidised). I was just wondering what others thought about this? I understand that there are women that are very happy to do this to give other women the opportunity of becoming a mother, but a bit of me also feels that some women who don’t have the funds (and don’t qualify for nhs funding) may feel this is their only way to have a baby, by giving some of their eggs away when in other circumstances it wouldn’t be something they would consider.

I find that very wrong. If the procedure is not tuned to produce more eggs - which increases the risk of side effects - the donor may have to go through the treatment more often to become pregnant. And imagine all your trials fail, but one woman is lucky with your egg. Hard to live with that, I imagine.

But I am very ‚conservative‘ in this respect, anyway. I think it is wrong to donate eggs or sperm so that someone you don‘t know and have not vetted will raise your biological child. A child which may very well have your or some relative‘s temperament - something the ‚new parents‘ may have no understanding for whatsoever.

A friend of ours donated sperm as a student (and, no, it was not a matter of survival), and me and my DP (we had just been together a couple of years, never talked about this type of stuff) were floored and DP asked the friend whether it didn‘t bother him he‘d probably never know potential offspring from this, could never help them out....

Maybe we are peculiar in this regard, idk.

Agree with deepwatersolo. Also children are now told who their donors are. I would only donate eggs to a close family member and even then probably wouldn't as it would affect our future relationship.

If they would be doing it anyway then there’s no need for a financial incentive.

As I am sure you know, I meant that she would be having the hormone treatment because she wants IVF and that is how they harvest the eggs. If she can't afford it due to the sky-high prices, then yeah, she wouldn't be having the hormone treatment.

This is a financial incentive ONLY to people who want to have IVF. It would not be attractive to any other woman and as such it can no way be compared to selling organs etc. It might allow some lower income women to have the treatment and let their eggs be used for others rather than thrown in the bin.

Usually these sorts of comments come from people who have not had obstacles placed in their way in having a family. I bet if you asked women having IVF that many would be happy to egg-share.

Maybe we are peculiar in this regard, idk

I think you are in that children need a loving and supportive family and sharing DNA is not terribly important in that, unless you or society make it a major issue. Contribution of sperm or egg says absolutely nothing about someone's ability to be a good parent. Throughout history children have been raised by people they thought were their fathers, but it turned out they weren't.
And that by frowning at any sort of donation of genetic material, you're effectively prioritising the heterosexual family. I know same-sex lesbian couples who have conceived with donor sperm. Their kids are happy and they are great parents. What is the problem?

But Funky, given that children need a loving and supporting family, don‘t you think whoever materially participates in bringing them into the world has a responibility to ensure that this is what the child they help create really gets?

I think it is very naive that IVF kids cannot end up in some crappy, dysfunctional family - just like any other kid. Difference being, where you directly participate in the creation of life you have a personal responsibility?

I think that once you donate your material in these circumstances, you don’t have a personal responsibility, no. And if your sole chance of parenthood was through donor material, you may change your tune. Quite easy when you’re in a heterosexual marriage to judge what is wrong and right re family relationships, but all family forms are socially constructed- it’s just that some are seen as better or more important than others.

No Funky, I would not change my tune. My urge to have a child came pretty late in life, and I resigned myself to the fact that I would remain childless if it did not work out naturally (or maybe adopt an older child, probably being too old to adopt a baby).
Regarding responsibility, we obviously differ, I do not think that you can abdicate it in such a scenario, and from what I hear from IVF children, who now en gros organize to get insights into their biological parents, those IVF kids seem to agree with me.
I, frankly, have no patience for the construction of children as a commodity every consumer is entitled to in pursuit of buying what they construct in their minds as the happiness they are entitled to.

This is a financial incentive ONLY to people who want to have IVF.

Yes I know - that’s the point. It puts a financial pressure, coercion, whatever on women who need fertility treatment.

We started our family relatively late and talked about all this along the way. I would have been very saddened not to have my own children but I still don’t think children are a right.

If there were enough women altruistically donating eggs there’d be no need for this.

Money = pressure, always.

*I still don’t think children are a right.
*
I agree with this. It seems that so many people don't think of how the children may feel, only what they want.

Well if the other option is not to have the treatment at all due to cost, there will be many priced out of this. Not sure you’re doing them a favour this way really. Charging for IVF could surely be seen as the even bigger wrong- dangling hope in front of desperate people at a very high financial cost.

Altruistic donation is unrealistic for egg donation. The fact that it involves taking hormones with a small risk of complications means that few women will want to go through it for nothing.

I don’t think children are a right either. But when you have people who have children telling that to people who desperately want them, it’s maybe a bit of a bitter pill. Like home owners telling those who can’t get on the property ladder that home ownership isn’t everything. Many people have a very strong urge to become parents. Also there is no compelling evidence that using donor material is bad for the child concerned.

I'm mostly against surrogacy (paid or "altruistic") or selling eggs etc, but the one situation where I can think it's reasonable is in a shared situation. So someone performs the surrogacy for someone in exchange for eggs or something like that.

Exactly - it’s risky and unpleasant but some women do it for another cycle cut price. That’s coercion.

One the one hand we can ask women to make altruistic donations where they lose something quite valuable, either 9 months of their life (which could potentially mean the loss of their later ability to have their own children), or their genetic material... which to me is problematic as we often expect women to do for everyone with nothing in return.

But on the other hand paying women for womb rental or to buy their eggs is abhorrent.

If there is any somewhat ethically sound option it's letting tho women get this thing they want in exchange for something of genuinely equal value.

I don't think you all are actually grasping how it works. Women don't go in saying I want IVF, I can't afford it so you can have my eggs in exchange. It's an option only available to those who have already paid for and gone through the retrieval part of IVF and upon completion of the egg retrieval have had an excess of eggs produced, more than is allowed to be or wanted to be inserted at one time. Only then does the clinic offer to do the fertilization and insertion for free in exchange for the eggs that would otherwise be destroyed. It's literally none risk.

I know. And so do the women who go in and do the procedure. Nobody gets to that stage and the offer of cut price further services if you donate is sprung on them as a surprise. They know it’s an option if they get to point x from the start.

If there were enough women happy to do this altruistically, no payment would be needed. Women know if they meet certain conditions they will be able to do this. If your funds are low, it’s a powerful incentive.

I don't think you all are actually grasping how it works. Women don't go in saying I want IVF, I can't afford it so you can have my eggs in exchange. It's an option only available to those who have already paid for and gone through the retrieval part of IVF and upon completion of the egg retrieval have had an excess of eggs produced, more than is allowed to be or wanted to be inserted at one time. Only then does the clinic offer to do the fertilization and insertion for free in exchange for the eggs that would otherwise be destroyed. It's literally none risk.

In fact, I intentionally asked how the procedure goes in order to understand it.

If the clinic asked to be allowed to use the excess of eggs on another woman AFTER the patient already gave birth, there would be no problem. (Not as much of a problem, anyway)

But if they do it before the IVF, then it is perfectly possible women who can't afford the treatment (and nowadays, it is perfectly possible to pay a sum of money you cannot afford in the hopes of getting it back later) won't get to have a baby, or will have go to the whole process again.

Knittedjest - that's incorrect. In most clinics it's an upfront option if you can't otherwise afford it.

When DH and I were looking into IVF and wondering how the hell we were going to afford it, I heard an advert on the radio from a clinic looking for women to become egg sharers. It's not that the clinic says after collection would you like some money back for some of your eggs, they're actively recruiting women to egg share before collection.

No, we don't have children after IVF; quite possibly we never will. That doesn't mean that I'll put my desire for a child over the well-being of said hypothetical child or another woman by seeking out an egg donor or a commercial surrogate. There was a thread on here a few weeks ago about surrogacy and many of the arguments around it are very similar.

I was pretty ill after egg collection: it's not without its risks. As with surrogacy, I can just about get on board with altruistic egg donation, but not commercial - and that is what egg sharing is.

If you needed a kidney transplant, would you ever be told that you can have the kidney but only if you'll give up part of your liver? No, and you can't buy organs either and I'm not sure why eggs are seen differently.

My main concern is that, like so many things in life, the way you feel before something is very different to how you feel after. Before having children I don't think I would have understood how strong maternal instinct can be. Offering women the chance for IVF is coercive.

I know women on both sides - several who have used donor eggs and one who has donated. All are great Mums. Their lives are very, very different and I know the women who donated never would have done it if there was another financial option.

I never said using donor material in itself is bad for the children Funky. What I am saying is that the current practice of giving donor material without a second thought what will become of it is very disrespectful towards the children, and many go on to question where they came from and what their donor‘parents‘ thought when they were donating. Surely, this could be done in a considerate way, and if donors feel it is too much to ask that they look at with whom the kid will grow up, write the kid a personal letter and be open to meeting the kid at some point, I do not think they should donate. And parents who want the kid but want any link to the bio-parents erased, should also not get their way.

I have a friend who suffered enormously cause his mum would always brush him off regarding his bio-dad. My friend was 30, when mum finally spit out the guy‘s name, and said he was an arse. Friend tracked the guy down in another city, knows address where the guy lives, but never dared to go there meet him. Friend is now over 40. Still mulling it. The situations of IVF donor kids who want to know more about their biological heritage is not so different, judging from articles on the matter.
Why would people deliberately create such shitty situations for the children they allegedly desire in order to ‚selflessly love them and care for them.‘ I am truly at a loss here.

And obviously no kid will want to hear ‚yeah, I donated the DNA that created you to random people I knew nothing about so I could have my own IVF baby from the other eggs‘ or ‚yeah, the Sperm that created you bought me a nice bicycle, never gave a second thought about what would come of it‘.