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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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

223 replies

Forwarder · 08/01/2024 13:51

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

I’m 46 with three children. Now I want a baby with my younger partner

After attempts to conceive naturally ended in miscarriage, Grace Ackroyd and her boyfriend, Joab, looked into egg donors. This is what happened

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

OP posts:
greyflannel · 11/01/2024 23:18

JustanotherMNSlapperTwat · 11/01/2024 23:14

If I'm honest I'm not sure I understand your point, apologies if my answer in my pervious post to you didnt fit the context of what you were asking

Edited

I was just replying to @Agrona's point on donor risk awareness.

Britinme · 11/01/2024 23:31

@PencilsInSpace "Which part of 'It's illegal to pay for egg donation in the UK' are you struggling with?"

What part of paying expenses in compensation are you struggling with?

Apart from that, I live in the USA. In the U.S., it is legal for a woman to donate eggs either anonymously or not. It is also legal to receive financial compensation for donating eggs. Egg donation clinics will require all donors to sign a contract that ensures they have no legal rights or responsibilities to any resulting children or embryos.

Britinme · 11/01/2024 23:36

Forwarder · 11/01/2024 21:40

@Britinme equates sale of eggs with procuring an abortion. I don't see the equivalence. The parallel for me is prostitution.

I don't believe I made that equation. My point was that many arguments put forward on this thread to say that women should not be allowed to donate their eggs are similar to the arguments put forward to prevent women from having abortions.

We've heard a lot of those on my side of the Atlantic since SCOTUS did away with Roe v Wade and half the states promptly made it virtually impossible to get an abortion. Thats one reason why I'm rather sensitive to rights over their own bodies being removed from women.

Delphinium20 · 12/01/2024 02:02

@greyflannel I dont think anyone is saying it does. Rather the point is about exploitation. Why are you suggesting otherwise?

I'm saying that exploiting women via egg buying and surrogacy is still bad even if you have suffered awful things in your life and struggled with the pain of infertility.

Agrona · 12/01/2024 02:38

greyflannel · 11/01/2024 22:52

Is the issue though about the balance of benefits and risks for donors, rather than absolute risks of the procedures?

Obviously the NHS conducts egg collection many times every day. Young women are able to harvest their own eggs through the same procedures for the purposes of freezing.

Having looked quickly through some articles about egg donation, it is clear that there the information regarding side effects and risks is heavily dominated by those who are in the business of buying and selling the eggs. One site does not even mention potential risks.

However a further search from medical papers includes such effects as deep vein thrombosis, breast cancer, blood clots, colon cancer and other concerning health issues MAY be a result.

The trouble is there is a failure to monitor the long term effects on egg donation. There were some studies conducted around 2017-2019 which were severely limited and the findings indicate further study is required due. This has not occurred.

As egg donation has been in existence for over 30 years this seems more than a simple oversight.

greyflannel · 12/01/2024 07:38

Delphinium20 · 11/01/2024 21:40

No matter how grievous one's losses and pain it can never justify exploitation or coercion or pressure to get what you want. It just can't.

Who is suggesting otherwise?

This acts as a bit of a disingenuous smear.

greyflannel · 12/01/2024 07:54

Agrona · 12/01/2024 02:38

Having looked quickly through some articles about egg donation, it is clear that there the information regarding side effects and risks is heavily dominated by those who are in the business of buying and selling the eggs. One site does not even mention potential risks.

However a further search from medical papers includes such effects as deep vein thrombosis, breast cancer, blood clots, colon cancer and other concerning health issues MAY be a result.

The trouble is there is a failure to monitor the long term effects on egg donation. There were some studies conducted around 2017-2019 which were severely limited and the findings indicate further study is required due. This has not occurred.

As egg donation has been in existence for over 30 years this seems more than a simple oversight.

With respect, you don't need to limit your search to donor conception if you are looking for data on the physical risks of stimulation and egg collection.

Britinme · 12/01/2024 10:02

If the physical risks of stimulation are your concern, then you are presumably opposed to anybody having IVF at all. Most donor eggs are collected from women having their own IVF procedures.

I do wish @PencilsInSpace would stop conflating egg donation and surrogacy. In my opinion these are two completely different issues.

Britinme · 12/01/2024 10:04

Apologies - it's the middle of the night here and I attributed that to @PencilsInSpace but it was actually @Delphinium20 who expressed it and I can't edit my post on the iPad.

Forwarder · 12/01/2024 11:37

Britinme · 12/01/2024 10:02

If the physical risks of stimulation are your concern, then you are presumably opposed to anybody having IVF at all. Most donor eggs are collected from women having their own IVF procedures.

I do wish @PencilsInSpace would stop conflating egg donation and surrogacy. In my opinion these are two completely different issues.

How are egg 'donation' and surrogacy two completely separate issues, but egg selling and abortion access are inextricably linked?

In the US it appears that the term egg donation = egg selling. In the UK there is a veneer of regulation, under attack by the likes of the article above.

How is selling an egg different to renting access to an orifice by the hour?

I'm interested to hear your thoughts on prostitution.

OP posts:
Delphinium20 · 12/01/2024 20:46

Egg selling exploits young women who've never had children and women who are emotionally vulnerable going through IVF. It's not the same as surrogacy and but both fall under the unethical uses of women's bodies and the unethical creation of children.

Agrona · 12/01/2024 20:46

Greyflannel, with respect, the point is studies on the long term results of ova collection, by the current procedure, have not occurred, irrespective of whether it is a donor or a woman trying to become pregnant. It is the same procedure.

Is this of no concern?

Britinme · 12/01/2024 21:16

The ethics of decision making revolves around consent and the assumption made by several posters on this thread is that women are so uniquely vulnerable that they need to be protected against making a decision that these posters think is a bad or undesirable one. I keep pointing out that this is the same argument used to oppose women having abortions. Mental health outcomes and physical outcomes are both arguments frequently deployed there.

The question asked upthread is "How are egg 'donation' and surrogacy two completely separate issues, but egg selling and abortion access are inextricably linked?" Surrogacy involves the carrying of a baby to birth, and that baby being removed from its birth parent by design in advance and given to somebody else to raise. Egg donation is the transfer of a gamete from one body to another, and a subsequent baby being carried and given birth to by the second person and being brought up by that person. Unless you are equating a baby with a gamete (another argument often used by opponents of abortion) these two things are not the same.

pickledandpuzzled · 12/01/2024 21:44

I find it counterintuitive that we have no responsibility for our genetic offspring.

I couldn’t donate because I couldn’t imagine that gulf. Imagine finding out that an egg you donated 20 years ago was commissioned by someone who sexually abused or was emotionally neglectful of the resulting child.

and the point about women being positioned as emotional, vulnerable and unable to make decisions and their own body- no. Only in the same way that both men and women are considered unable to consent to selling any other body part.

Britinme · 12/01/2024 23:08

Why doesn't the same apply to children resulting from sperm donation? Or should that be illegal too?

Newsenmum · 12/01/2024 23:12

ErrolTheDragon · 08/01/2024 13:59

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

You dont say.Hmm

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

Egg donors are often medical professionals who have seen the pain of infertility.

Delphinium20 · 12/01/2024 23:14

While the argument in anti-choice abortion discussions may include equating a baby with a gamete, I don't think anyone here is doing that. They are claiming that creating a baby ON PURPOSE from that gamete where a mother will not raise or know her child is why it's unethical. She is one of the mothers, regardless if she gestated and birthed the baby or not. The baby will look like her, act like her and inherit his or her personality and everything else genetic from her and the genetic father. The child is purposely created to be kept from her. This is a big deal that is overlooked all the time in the soft and obfuscating language.

Gametes as baby or not (I don't see them as babies) NOR emotional readiness of women seeking abortions is not why I, as an American very pro-choice feminist argue against abortion being banned. I argue that women shouldn't be forced to have a baby if they don't want one: women shouldn't be forced to be pregnant. THIS is about women's rights to their bodies not being used as broodmares which is EXACTLY the same reason why I strongly oppose surrogacy and egg buying. Women's bodies are NOT for others to use as they please.

Delphinium20 · 12/01/2024 23:21

Britinme · 12/01/2024 23:08

Why doesn't the same apply to children resulting from sperm donation? Or should that be illegal too?

Different set of issues. Any woman or couple wanting to use sold sperm obviously isn't putting a man's health at risk (no men are harmed from jacking off into a cup). Men can take this issue up if they want and disagree. I tend to focus on issues that harm women and children.

Children of donor-sold sperm do say that not knowing their bio fathers or knowing that their bio fathers have no interest in them is painful. Ethically, I think they should consider what this means for their child not to know or meet their bio father.

Delphinium20 · 12/01/2024 23:22

Egg donors are often medical professionals who have seen the pain of infertility.

I've never heard this before. Do you have some data on that?

Agrona · 13/01/2024 01:01

Delphinium20 · 12/01/2024 23:22

Egg donors are often medical professionals who have seen the pain of infertility.

I've never heard this before. Do you have some data on that?

Yes. This is a new claim and evidence would be appreciated.

Phineyj · 13/01/2024 08:35

www.theguardian.com/society/2005/aug/11/childrensservices.uknews

I suppose (assuming openness on the part of the bringing-up parents) that at least donor-conceived children have a reason for any discrepancies? Because according to this research, a discrepancy between official and genetic parents is neither uncommon, nor new.

pickledandpuzzled · 13/01/2024 10:54

Britinme · 12/01/2024 23:08

Why doesn't the same apply to children resulting from sperm donation? Or should that be illegal too?

It does. There’s a thread going at the moment where a mum is horrified her 18yr old son is planning to earn £35 by donating.

I’m scathing of men who walk away from their children without a thought of the consequences.
That stands regardless of the circumstances, and regardless of the sex of the gamete provider.

greyflannel · 13/01/2024 12:19

Exploitation is occasionally avoided in the UK through the use of genuinely altruistic donors. Where consent is not forced through economic necessity, I cannot see why donation is not a reasonable choice for a woman to make?

Objections to genuinely unforced and altruistic donation seem to arise from biological confusion and/or reductionism and treating a single cell gamete as though it were a child.

Referring to a donor's child as 'her baby' is not meaningful or scientifically accurate. Unfertilised eggs are not a potential human, and arguments that they are, are phenomenally dangerous to women, for the reasons already mentioned. Asserting donors must be mothers, and 'their children are being kept from them', is reactionary for this reason.

Eggs are single cells. Donors give tissue that would otherwise be left to decompose. One gamete contains half the genetic material needed for a potential conception. A viable embryo that successfully implants into a recipient's body is the start of the potential for a human, but whether and how that potential grows and develops, is determined by a phenomenally complex set of interactions between the bodies of the gestational mother and child as a biological system; both will be changed forever as consequences of their symbiosis. (Which is one of the reasons why surrogacy is a very different proposition).

The effect of genes upon the phenotype is mediated by the environment and the process of gene expression. This is true for all conception and at a meta level allows for evolutionary adaptations to changing environmental conditions. This includes the role of the gestational mother's homones in controlling genetic switches.

Further, as we understand more about our constitution as biological entities we think of as 'individual', but are in fact a collection of microorganisms, a further important determinant of 'individual' development is being understood; the microbial environment, which is created for the fetus by their gestational mother in utero:

The symbiotic microbiome must be understood as constituting a third set of inherited genes. In addition to the nucleus and mitochondria, the symbiotic microbiome is passed from one generation to the next (see Moran, 2007; Douglas, 2010; Gilbert, 2011)... the mammalian fetus does not just leave the uterus and passively acquire a new set of symbionts. Rather, the [gestational] mother actively passes the symbiotic baton to the developing fetus, and she doesn't relinquish control as rapidly and immediately as one might expect from the standard story. Indeed, the colonization of the body, along with the first breath that changes the circulatory system of the newborn, is possibly the most important biological aspect of birth, and the [gestational] mother will be playing an active role in this process.
(A holobiont birth narrative: the epigenetic transmission of the human microbiome, Scott F. Gilbert)

DNA does not dictate 'how we act in life' and DNA does not set our personalities. Genes have a major influence for sure, but how what is encoded in an occyte, is ultimately displayed in a phenotype (or not), is moderated in many, many different ways by environmental interactions, and the significance of that in human selfhood, is part of a much bigger story about our relationships to our physical environment, resources and our social relationships.

None of this makes exploitation of either woman OK.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4137224/#B29

greyflannel · 13/01/2024 13:01

It is also odd for feminists to take a 'natural' and ahistoric view of family relations, as though families are comprised of a heterosexual couple cohabiting with their genetic children.

Helleofabore · 13/01/2024 13:08

coercive power comes from more sources than money.