Number of Egg Donors Increase

Human egg donation was a rarity not so long ago. But heightened demand for eggs — and rising compensation for donors — are prompting more young women to consider it.

As more older moms look for help getting pregnant, younger women have become increasingly willing to part with their eggs. Some do it to help relatives and friends, or from a sense of altruism, but others openly acknowledge money is a big factor in their decision, prompting critics to worry that they’re helping drive an unregulated market for human tissue… The money is seen as compensation for time and trouble. Among other things, donors learn to inject themselves with hormones and, eventually, have a needle inserted through their vaginal wall so eggs can be harvested.

“Everyone does it for the money,” says an egg donor in New York. “No one would do that for free — maybe for your sister, but not for a stranger.”

The American Society of Reproductive Medicine, or ASRM, has set a compensation guideline of $5,000, with a limit of $10,000 for special cases — if, for instance, a recipient wants eggs of rare ancestry. The president of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, an affiliate of ASRM, argues that if women were just motivated by money, they wouldn’t get past the psychological screening to become a donor. And, he says, researchers who’ve surveyed donors have found another strong motive. “They’re very altruistic and very willing to help a couple who’s trying to conceive,” says Dr. David Grainger, who’s also a reproductive endocrinologist at University of Kansas medical school in Wichita. Still, some egg brokers — particularly those in the East and West — are ignoring suggestions for a cap on compensation, and paying women more. “Egg Donors Wanted” ads are common on the Internet, in college newspapers and on city trains. And with no federal laws limiting donor fees — and fertility doctors conceding the difficulties of policing their own industry — one ethicist says that eggs have quickly become “commoditized.” A small survey from an Illinois clinic, included at a recent ASRM meeting, found that donors used compensation for everything from savings and down-payments on property to school expenses and car payments. Half of them also used some of the money to pay credit card debt and other loans.

“It does feel weird to know there’s a child out there,” says Kristin McKenna, who’s signed up to donate again. “But I’m just a small piece of the puzzle.

21 is the minimum age to donate eggs recommended by the ASRM. The thought is that, by that age, a young woman is old enough to better understand the choice she’s making. But Grainger and some others in the field concede that even the most careful guidelines can’t absolutely prevent regrets later in life. That was the case for one young woman who initially told herself she was donating to help prospective parents.

“It would be a relief to know that my eggs were being used to find medical cures,” she says, “rather than being used to produce additional kids for well-to-do American families.”

Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology
American Society for Reproductive Medicine