Wanted, Donor Eggs, Cheap; Young Women Preferred
It's right to pay women who give their eggs for research, writes Ronald Green, chair of the ethics advisory board for the stem cell company that is recruiting the largest pool of potential egg donors for stem cell research. He's on the right track, frankly, in that egg donation for research isn't fundamentally different from egg donation for reproduction, and that if it is ok to pay women to donate eggs for reproduction, then it is ok to pay them to donate for research.But it isn't right to pay them for reproductive donation. In reproductive donation of eggs, the kiddos from colleges are offered preposterous amounts of money for their egg donation, and it has long been suggested that exploitative payments encourage donors who have high credit card debt, etc. Big problem. In egg donation for stem cell research, by contrast, the fee will be smaller. But it will still be priced high enough to attract the very young women whose eggs are best suited (it turns out, as we blogged) to produce stem cells. The payment is not for out of pocket expenses - at which point one would really know that these women are risking their fertility and even their lives for the cause. No, this is just buying eggs cheap. The women are every bit as coerced - in fact perhaps more so.
The big issue in egg donation is that it has to be truly consensual, not bribed.
[disclosure: Dr. McGee was Chair of the Advanced Cell Technology ethics advisory board until 2000]
contribute a comment
Comments have been closed for this post.
comments
Egg "donation" is not a walk in the park. If money were not part of the equation, why would a young woman put her health and future reproductive options at risk for the sake of scientific research that is unlikely to benefit her or anyone she knows? What would consent need to look like in that situation? Could there be valid consent?
But back to reality: if a college student is collecting $5000 for her eggs, isn't it disingenuous to accept "altruism" and faith in scientific progress as a genuine explanation/justification for her choice?
- by Sue on Jul 21, 2005 at 9:34 PM | link
Wouldn't it be nice if people saved words like coercion and exploitation for actual cases of coercion and exploitation? There is no threat here, so no coercion. Exploitation implies taking advantage of someone's vulnerability to give them a worse deal than they deserve - the solution would be more payment, not less. If the worry is undue inducement - we need to look at the risks of donation and whether they are great enough to make donation irrational. If they are, reducing payment will not improve matters. If they are not, we need not be overly concerned that young women will be so blinded by the prospect of compensation as to act irrationally against their own interests.
- by on Jul 22, 2005 at 3:10 PM | link
Aren't young men compensated for donating sperm?
- by Kathy Krassa on Jul 22, 2005 at 10:20 PM | link
Sure, but they aren't taking special sperm-ripening drugs that we don't know a whole lot about; and there are definitely no long-term health impacts or associated with their particular, um, mode of donation.
- by on Jul 24, 2005 at 2:44 AM | link
Well, all the more reason for young women to be compensated, no? Either make it illegal or offer big bucks, to compensate for the dangers and discomforts. How is it better if they go through danger and discomfort without compensation?
- by Kathy Krassa on Jul 25, 2005 at 9:38 PM | link
Yup--the point I was making earlier wasn't about getting paid, actually. Rather, it was about the fact that gamete donation is a risk-free endeavor for men but a potentially risky deal for women.
The argument about inducement, imo, turns on two points: (1) whether there's a "fair" amount of $$ to pay somebody to risk their health for the sake of research, and (2) whether paying for "donations" (whether of eggs or kidneys) doesn't in fact create an economic situation in which those who are already disadvantaged bear an undue portion of the burden for research that disproportionally benefits--guess who?--rich folks, who can pay for the resulting treatments and products.
- by Sue on Jul 27, 2005 at 3:42 PM | link
If the answer to (1) is yes, isn't the answer to (2) moot (because any fair amount would compensate for the disproportionate distribution of benefits and burdens)? And if the answer to (1) is no, isn't the answer to (2) also moot (because if there is no fair amount, paying for donations is unethical regardless)?
- by on Jul 27, 2005 at 4:06 PM | link