While Ann posted a few months ago on the recruitment of young women to donate their eggs for stem cell research and the safety risks involved, ethical questions have been raised regarding compensation.
While there’s been some controversy about women getting paid to donate their eggs to fertility clinics, the fact that women are getting paid to donate their eggs for stem cell research has created some talk.
One of the bigger questions posed regarding this asks whether getting compensated for donating eggs to stem cell research exploits lower-class women. Marcy Darnovsky, the associate director of the Center of Genetics and Society, says that a woman’s need to survive could override the medical risks involved in donating eggs:
'I think any woman who's trying to pay the rent and put food on the table, and people who don't have a lot of money to spare, are going to be tempted to discount the risks and overvalue the benefits.'
But like Ann’s previous post, some states in the U.S. have enacted a law classifying egg donors as “research subjects,� so you could potentially say the same thing could happen for any research subject. Kathy Hudson, director of the Genetics and Public Policy Center at John Hopkins University also says there are ways of avoiding exploitation, like ensuring that a variety of groups of women are recruited to donate, as well as putting limits on the number of times women can donate.
At the same time, some of the most heinous cases of exploitation in this country were due to flawed research methods, so donors' protection should be an absolute priority.
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I'm really interested in the first point in bold, particularly to see where donating for research differs from donating for couples hoping to get pregnant. I know at Harvard the newspaper was constantly running ads seeking very specific characteristics in an egg donor, and offering impressive compensation. But overall, the discussion reminds me of some I've had about compensation for plasma donation and the prevalence of homeless or addicted individuals donating for fast cash.
Both couples looking for eggs and researchers looking for eggs recruit pretty heavily at colleges...and although many college women are independently poor, they tend to come from middle- and upper-class backgrounds.
I'm really interested in the first point in bold, particularly to see where donating for research differs from donating for couples hoping to get pregnant.
Because couples seeking tall, athletic, 1400+ SAT scoring, blonde/redhaired/Jewish, perfectly healthy women probably aren't going to be doing any exploiting of poorer women, because poorer women probably wouldn't meet their criteria. (I've seen those ads too, and truth be told they creep me out).
I really want someone to do some research on the health dangers posed by donating eggs soon, because I for one would totally be up for a way to donate something very much needed to a cause I believe in and score some cash at the same time. Does that make me a horrible person?
As mentioned in the post, egg donation can be unpleasant and even dangerous. So, it seems perfectly fair to compensate donors for their time and discomfort.