Considering Egg Donation: Whose Voices and Perspectives Matter?

Selling eggs for fertility or research purposes is currently a hotly contested issue: Is it safe? Is it ethical? Should women be paid for it? How much should they be paid? Does it commodify and exploit young women? In all these debates, the voices of young women—the primary targets of recruitment ads—are conspicuously absent.

As the march of ARTs move forward and demand escalates an increasing number of women will be recruited to supply their eggs for fertility and research. Yet research has very little to say about women’s experiences with these issues and the majority of information targeted to young women about egg donation takes a strong position either in support or against the practice.  This presentation will describe a collaborative project launched between an academic researcher – Laura Mamo at the Health Equity Institute (SFSU) and a non-profit community organization (Generations Ahead under the leadership of Sujatha Jesudason), both parties focused on reproductive rights and social justice to design an educational campaign and research project that accounts for the concerns and perspectives of young women in the debates about egg donation. 

We begin with the ART industry efforts to recruit women to sell their eggs: everyday, young women (mostly on college campuses) are exhorted to sell their eggs. Fertility clinics and brokers post ads in college newspapers, Facebook and Craigslist soliciting young women from top colleges, with high SAT scores and certain physical features, to sell their eggs for $5,000, $10,000, $50,000 and even up to $100,000. Several debates revolve around the issue and questions about what is an appropriate level of compensation; how to assess the long and short-term health risks involved in the procedure; is this a form of eugenics and designing babies; and, does this constitute a form of commodification and exploitation of young women?

This project seeks to ask and answer two questions:  How do young women think and feel about egg donation?  And, what information and alternatives would these women like to have about health, safety, short and long-term ethics, and how to make the best decision for themselves?