Egg Donors Challenge Pay Rates, Saying They Shortchange Women

“The third time I donated, the only reason was for the money,” she said.

I was born via sperm donation. Some donor women (and men) seem to equate this with casual blood or even organ donation. But they are creating an actual person.

With modern technology, anonymity, even if promised is virtually becoming impossible. The ethics and consequences of donation are mind boggling, and are often an afterthought to the money someone is getting for a 'bunch of cells".

It appears as a private matter but "donors" are involved in a serious medical procedure - one in which the long term risks to the donor women have not been evaluated to the standards all medical procedures in this country are lawfully subjected. The money may be great and the women are making a free choice; but this is fundametally a profit making medical industry and therfore not free of regulation and rules.

Arguing from an ethical standpoint as to the societal benefit of egg selling and whether that forces regulation will remain forever disputable. Medical safety is, however, forcible. How many times can a woman safely donate? Unknown at this point; and that fact alone invites government involvement.

If you believe that life begins at conception, then IVF is an indefensible assault on the dignity of human life. For every donated or purchased egg that eventually results in a full term birth, there are often several dozen embryos (eggs which have been fertilized by a sperm) whose ultimate destiny remains uncertain. Many do not survive an attempt at artificial implantation, while the rest are either frozen indefinitely in suspended animation, or discarded (destroyed), or used for scientific experimentation.

Unlike a most commenters here I've actually used a donor eggs for my second child and I can say from actual knowledge that most comments here are either opinions or assumptions not necessarily based in fact. First, there is ZERO research that shows that the modern hormone regime is harmful. I've had 21 IVF cycles and every study shows that my risk for cancers is not higher. This was not the case 20 years ago but it is certainly true today. Second, lower class women are almost never egg donors - they are more typically surrogates. Egg donors are 99% college or graduate level educated women. Most women who apply to be donors are not accepted because they haven't achieved the education, don't pass the background/health screenings, or simply don't have traits (either talents or physical traits) that recipients are looking for. High demand donors, like the one who helped create my daughter, are paid upwards of $40,000. Third, why shouldn't we pay accomplished donors who are in demand more? This is America, a meritocracy. If you've gotten a Phd, were a collegiate athlete and a model (like my donor!), why not be paid accordingly? Lastly, stop with the idea that donating eggs is a lot of work. It's about 8 doctor's appointments (each is 30 minutes including time in the waiting room) and a 15 minute "surgery". The total time is less than 8 hours and the pay per hour is outrageous by anyone's standards. Did I mention that they also get travel time and health insurance too?

I am so happy I was "in my prime" before all of this nonsense.

Why not drop the pretence? These women and men are selling their children, what we used to call 'their flesh and blood'. The price doesn't really matter apart from revealing just how children (eggs and sperm) are reduced to being commodities. Who would have ever thought that America would come to this?

In the current system there is a middle man in the transaction that controls the financial outcome for the donor/seller. If it is a pure financial transaction, the woman, with exceptionally desireable traits, would harvest multiple eggs from a single cycle and store them under her own name as her own property. They could then be marketed to fertility clinics as single eggs and sold at the highest price. A value added product could be produced by fertilizing them with sperm from a 'highly desireable' male donor. She would minimize her risks and maximize her profit with this scheme. The current system where only one recipient/buyer receives ALL the eggs harvested from a single cycle minimizes the income potential for the donor/producer/seller and maximizes her risk. To be blunt, the woman controls the key component in the process but the system in place has placed the control into the hands of the clinic and likely most of the profit as well. Since we have reduced human eggs to 'product' status this represents a more typical model for something that is rare and unique. The ethics, of course, are a whole other issue.

There should be no cap on the amount of money women are paid for eggs they may donate or sell. If the organization or individual soliciting eggs is worried about whether or not a woman is lying about her medical history, or some other aspect of herself, then it's up to them to do their research on the woman's testimony. It's unreasonable to make pricing guidelines for the purpose of discouraging certain types of donors. Most people are honest and I think if the price tag was higher there would be more prime donors, not the other way around.

“We’re in America — the market would take care of itself without guidelines.”

That's almost as big a prevarication as are, "for the health and safety of women" and "to prevent voter fraud."

It's the same old story, exploitation of a resource, that has been playing out with capitalism since the discovery of 'profit.' Fertility clinics and egg-donor agencies have to purchase the "raw material" so that it can be "processed and sold to customers" generating an income for the clinics and agencies. The more paid for the "raw material," the smaller the profit margin. As with every capitalistic enterprise, clinics and agencies want to pay the absolute bottom dollar for the "raw material" that, by hook or by crook, can be orchestrated to maximize the profit when the 'product' is sold at the highest price "the market will bear." Avarice on the march.

The particulars of all the participants have boiled down to competing rhetoric campaigning for public acceptance and I side with the donors, rejecting the arguments of the clinics and agencies as mongering assertions that are absent supporting evidence...or as pitifully lame...or as irritatingly trite...or various combinations of the three. (holding moral considerations and arguments for an altogether different discussion)

I respect a woman's right to choose.
My husband and I chose adoption (and are not infertile). I feel that adoption/having a child is about finding a family for a child who needs one, as so many do, not about making a child for a couple.
But, it is a fair market and donation, IVF, etc. will prevail. As well, the donor woman and the paying couple are entering into a consensual arrangement. I am personally uncomfortable with it, but they aren't and it seems to me that the best thing to do is regulate it as stringently as possible to avoid abuse and exploitation (which occur in adoption as well).

This seems troubling both in terms of young women who may be enticed by money to do what is bad for them and in terms of the rising cost of reproduction for desperate couples. The more prices raise, the fewer people can afford the treatments. If insurance pays all or part, then the rest of us are subsidizing the whole process. For young women, even middle class ones, this process might seen a way to make money and pay off student loans or gather a down payment for the house or start a college fund for their kid, but at what price to their health.

Not mentioned is the situation of a woman having children and her 'own' children having biological half-siblings about. While that is true even if eggs are truly donated, more money in the business means the likelihood of more women selling (lets stop being coy about it) more of their eggs.

Wealthy and upper middle class women do not donate their eggs. This is a terrible instance of better off women (and men) exploiting poor women for a piece of their bodies. The fact that women are exploiting other women doesn't make it noble - the opposite, actually. Egg donation is not like sperm donation - it requires stimulation with hormones and surgery. Except for those rare cases where family members are involved this ought to be outlawed. We wouldn't let people sell a kidney because they an extra one - why this? It makes me ill as a woman and a feminist to see this become mainstream.

Based on the uniqueness of the provider the price may vary from a few thousand dollars to infinity. Women have been shortchanged throughout history. This is just another example for the same. I wouldn't sell my sperm for even millions of dollars if I didn't like the receiver.

“If the compensation became too high, there is a concern that it might be incentive for donors to lie about their medical history,” said Tripp Monts, a lawyer representing the society. “And it could induce young women to donate without thinking too far down the road.”

Thankfully this is not a problem for young men. I suspect that if you hung out in the right places near the UTexas campus, you could find a young man who would donate his sperm for free.

I researched Egge Harvesting & compared it to recent fertility studies done on Mice Ovaries. Women dont have to produce an Egg to give a viable sample. The Hormone Therapy used to induce multiple Ovulations is unhealthy for women & archaic. $10,000 doesnt even begin to cover the damage & risk. I take very good care of myself, so if I had an opportunity to donate to a Mega-Millionaire Norwegian Couple in a contemporary Hormone-Free method I would gladly take it to fund the Vanity Publication of my Graphic Novels. But who wants to pay women that much? for anything?

It is not about the exploitation of low class women whose eggs probably would not fetch high "demand" and "prices" nor exploiting Hispanic or black black women who are not considered "attractive donors" [or "producers" of eggs for sale]. This industry is now down the slippery road to obscenity. A mix of commercial eugenics and yes, the sale of body parts. Are the Sears catalogues out yet of the egg makers and the products they are placing in the market for sale? The euphemism of "donors" is not just hypocritical. It is insulting and it is deliberately hiding the real character of the operations. A typical case of bad faith. Ditto with "sperm donors". Eggs and sperm for sale. The ultimate commodity in capitalist society.

I don't think this is cut and dry, but I think that while considering the angles of this issue it is important to keep in mind the fact that women are often infantilized and that motherhood is sanctified. I hate the idea that people's discomfort with egg donation is driven either by the idea that the donors don't understand the impact of their choice or that they are offended by the idea that a women would mother children she doesn't intend on raising.

The problem here is probably because people are so fixed on the euphemism. A donor, by definition, should not even ask for compensation in the first place. If we are going to regulate these, then we might as well call it what it really is. That way people do have a legal right to ask for compensation instead of arguing about what it means to be a donor.

If there is price fixing, no regulation is needed. The donors can simply bring a class action law suit and get treble damages!

Making babies should not be entrusted to the private sector. Investing in baby-making, minimizing the costs and maximizing the profits of the process and setting prices for eggs and sperm based on how good looking or how smart the "donors" are should be policies overseen by those who are more concerned with getting things right than earning a buck.

America. Isn't it great!

Women don't realize that because of egg degradation, the chance of becoming pregnant while "trying" drops to 3% per month starting at age 35. What this means is that if you start at age 35, you won't have your 1st child until about age 38, and the chance of a second child with your own eggs after that is almost nil. The media hype about 45-60-year old women having babies, is really hype about the fact that egg donation can be made to work for old people, period.

When I was at Stanford 20 years ago, there were routinely ads in the newspaper to pay women up to $70,000 for eggs. Presumably that price would be rare - must be the perfect combination of fertility, brains, beauty, ideal physical and mental health, and a Nobel Prize winner, too! - but if this business of selling eggs is going to be permitted at all, why shouldn't women who are more desirable be paid more? And if men can donate sperm without restriction, why can't women?

This is a major reason why the Catholic church opposes IVF-- that the dignity of human life is threatened by turning eggs into a commodity that are bought and sold to the highest bidder. Children should not be things that can effectively be purchased on a market. Having children should be the result of a natural loving relationship between a husband and wife. IVF is an unnatural process that goes against nature. Selling eggs for profit is contrary to a moral society.

Are there guidelines on other medical procedures, on drug costs, even burial costs or is it just on the women donors. Perhaps the president of Barnard, a Women's college, might have opinion

Does Maggie Eastman's breast cancer have anything to do with the hormone treatments she went through 10 times (!) in order to harvest her eggs? Even if it didn't, how can anyone ethically put someone through this 10 times?? Egg donation is not a walk in the park -- it's hormone treatment (to "ripen" as many eggs as possible in that cycle, far more than happens naturally) and surgery.

It's a little-known fact that a huge fraction of women in medical school pay their tuition by becoming egg donors. They often graduate nearly-debt free, whereas men graduate up-to-their-eyeballs in debt.

If people cannot have children, so be it. It is natural law at work.

There is nothing stopping an egg donor from seeking the highest price possible for her services and engaging an attorney to negotiate and draw up a contract with people desperate for a child. Please stop characterizing this as "shortchanging women" or so-called concern for lower income women because it is clear that these claims are merely masking greed.

At what point does a "commodity", bought and sold, by dealers and brokers become a "donation"? We are slowly but surely getting to a place where a checklist will be made available to prospective infertile parents that allow them to customize their offspring. Blue eyes, check; brunette, check; above average height, check; athletic ability, check; etc.....
I wonder if the young women that are donating have given any thought to what their 60 year old self might feel about a child that they helped create?

I find it odd that we are talking about egg "donors" and egg "donations" when there is no donation involved. The women are selling their eggs, which is their privilege, but they are not donating them. It is very much a business transaction at every step of the way.

Ditto, of course, for sperm "donations".

People who are infertile should adopt. Period. This marketing of eggs and sperm is repulsive and degrading.

Not having children might be a blessing, having them is not always. I am a mother, I know all about hat.

women get thousands for a few eggs
guys get 50 bux for millions of sperm

wheres th fairness, i ask you

I was offered $10,000 to harvest my eggs about 15 years ago, so I'm surprised by how low the price is particularly given the medical and emotional risks involved. I couldn't do it. I certainly don't judge those who take this route, but I do also value the idea that adoption is a great alternative.

I think it's good that Poulson has started a forum for people to discuss this because the increasing trend has favored fertility treatments and people need to make informed, considered decisions, but I didn't talk to anyone when I made the decision to not pursue it because I had to be true to myself and you really don't know where people are coming from on an online forum and this is not something where a woman should be swayed by the madding crowd.

I'm glad to see an effort to regulate this industry though because it is an industry, and parenthetically, those who make money off it could certainly be a biased part of an online discussion forum.

"Some high-end fertility clinics and egg-donor agencies ignore the guidelines and pay more for eggs from particularly attractive donors: actresses, models, Asians, Jewish women and Ivy League students with high SAT scores."
If this is not discrimination then I don't know what is. And it is eugenics pure and simple. Shouldn't the courts and the politicians in Washington put an end to this, and at least stop people from paying White, Asian, and Jewish donors any more than is paid to Black donors? Equal pay for equal work. And it sounds like selling an egg is a lot of painful work.

I will never understand people who enter inter voluntary agreements then complain about the terms. It's like moving next to an airport and then complaining about the noise.