The sort of feminism where rich women walk over poor women. Times article on egg 'donation'

[Forwarder]

The Times is quite fond of human body parts for sale stories. Here's one where a woman in her late 40s can't get pregnant (shock!)

So she has to buy a younger woman's eggs. But :-( that's pricey.

The woman's own sister is too busy to be an egg donor. So it's contracted out to a lesser female.

Or have I got this wrong? If the sexes were reversed then the 40 something man would be gaily starting a new family with 30 yo woman. Is this a win for equality?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/238e675a-e2b4-42e3-8bc1-bd6d46403093?shareToken=9579efa3a218abf8dabc9fb74b22a5c3

It's not any kind of feminism. I don't know what point you're trying to make about equality.

It is startling the ease at which the author writes about transferring the risk, time, effort and pain to another woman because it isn't acceptable to put this on her sister.

I think that agencies must have to use some pretty creative ways to convince women to donate

You dont say.

It actually baffles me that any woman does this except (perhaps) for a close family member.

😮😮

“It’s sad to think that some people’s decisions may be heavily influenced by their financial situation.”

SAID ABOUT THE COMMISSIONING COUPLES!

Urgh. I agree there is nothing feminist about this.

I think now at 54 i can be fairly sure I wouldn't ever have done this. The impulse to break all morals to have a child is hardly new - the message i retained from the Bible was 'fuck anyone you can get hold of in order to have children, including rape, violence and transparent deceit, and GOD will bless you' but that doesn't mean I think it's ok. I hope her three existing children aren't having too much difficulty with the new situation.

Comments turned off 😬

Possibly not the feel good reception they were hoping for.

I think the key paragraph is this one:

Before this, my only pregnancy loss, I’d had an empathy bypass for other women who have experienced something similar.

She's referring to her bypass but I actually think it's more telling than that and she still has the empathy bypass that she thinks has disappeared

I was all ready to comment how the whole article was outrageous and all about her wants and to hell with anyone else but comments switched off. The Times are very good on GC stuff but surrogacy, they are shockers. Thank God that style woman is no longer droning on about her surrogacy, I was seriously considering cancelling my subscription due to seemingly never ending coverage that got.

The comments were on this morning. 100% giving the couple a slating.

Perhaps there should be some sympathy for her three children too. Suddenly insufficient. I hope they're old enough to not need too much more parenting.

I don't think it's anti-feminist to say that a man in his late forties can easily conceive a child with a younger woman but a woman in her late forties can't do the same with a younger man (or any age of man). Because it's biology causing that not social structures or pressures. If older women were physically able to conceive without assistance but were frowned upon for doing so when men aren't then that would be different.

Yes the comments were mostly saying, but you already have 3 children!
Incredulous at the entitlement.

Thank you for the share token.

Very entitled - other women, almost certainly poorer ones, sell their health so a mother of three healthy children can have another with her much younger 'millennial'.

What struck me was the repeated referrals to "donor" that were phrased so as to omit the idea that the donor is a person.

Where does it purport to be feminist?

This is certainly a ‘wealthier couple use economically disadvantaged woman for baby’ story, with all the associated dodgy ethics.

Old Testament full of that sort of thing.

Louise Perry is interesting on Christianity's attempts to regulate our base urges and protect the vulnerable. Her theory is we are returning to imperial Rome morality. Openly instead of covertly.

But magnanimous enough to accept cut price eggs from a short arse donor.

It's possibly 3rd wave feminism (the type that men approve of)

If she didn't already have children, would the story seem more sympathetic?

The thing not mentioned in that article is that many donor eggs (and embryos) are donated by women having their own IVF treatments who end up with too many eggs and embryos and donate them to other women. My DD had IVF using donor eggs and sperm since both she and her DH have fertility problems. She has two beautiful daughters, but also has four frozen embryos and soon will have to make the decision whether to donate them to somebody else (no payment involved) or have them destroyed.

The thing is some of the time that's directly linked to how much they have to pay for IVF

My IVF cost me £20k, when you are facing bills like that if someone says you can have IVF at a significantly reduced price that's a lot of coercion at a very vulnerable time

Given that the stress and treatment involved in IVF is the same regardless of the number of eggs you produce, why is that not a reasonable offer to help women to have IVF if they are out of NHS funding (as my DD was) and need to lessen the burden of costs of private treatment? I don't think that is necessarily coercive.

It actually baffles me that any woman does this except (perhaps) for a close family member.

Some of us feel compelled to do it else we can’t fund our own IVF. If a couple’s infertility is male factor, young women in their 20s and early 30s are encouraged by IVF clinics to take part in egg sharing schemes. Instead of paying £6,000, you pay only £3,000 or less. You give half of your harvested eggs to another, usually older, woman who pays the shortfall as well as for her own treatment. Most egg donation isn’t altruistic. It’s egg-sharing through desperation.

My IVF cost me £20k, when you are facing bills like that if someone says you can have IVF at a significantly reduced price that's a lot of coercion at a very vulnerable time

Oh god, yes. This.

Because you are essentially being financially persuaded to give away the potential of a baby thats genetically yours at a point where you might be extra emotional, depressed or just flat out desperate.

That's not ethical and the financial incentive makes it coercive

If someone offered a mother of a 3 month old baby £10k for it and she sold it it would be illegal. In fact a mother went to prison for 7 years in 2011 for trying to sell her baby to what she thought was a childless couple. But selling it at birth or at conception for £10k is somehow fine?

My DD carried those babies in her body, gave birth to them and fed them from her breasts. Are they somehow not her children because their genetic material isn't hers?

I believe they are her children in the same way that I believe adopted children are their adoptive parents children

It doesn't change the fact that they are genetically someone else's child though, and that person being persuaded financially at a vulnerable time to part with their embryos is not ethical

My eggs didn't work. My next step was donor eggs. I would have loved to have had children, am at times incredibly depressed I didn't but I will not exploit another woman just to have a baby.

I appreciate given what you have said about your daughter you won't agree with me. That's your right.