'Egg sharing': Please. Egg Sale is Egg Sale. Get a Grip.
Newcastle University is thrilled to announce their new plan to obtain eggs through "sharing." Egg sales by any other name are still--egg sales. Discounting 'cost of care' is paying for eggs. Who are these folks trying to kid with talk of sharing and donation?- Art Caplan
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Hold on a minute. I need IVF which is a very pricey undertaking. You will provide it at no "cost" provided I "donate some unused fertilized eggs". Call it what you like, it is conceivable that this is a good deal for both sides.
- by Sheila on Aug 2, 2006 at 11:20 AM | link
You're perfectly right about all that, but, still, the situation is not quite as straightforward as a simple sale.
The compensation comes in the form of a partial reimbursement for the cost of IVF - which of course is useful only to people who have chosen to undergo IVF anyway. Since it is only a partial discount, presumably nobody would accept this offer only to provide eggs for research; that would wind up costing them money, not earning them a net payment. So the egg donation piggybacks on a decision to undergo egg harvesting that has already been made and is itself of value to the patient. The payment is for the right to use some of the eggs thus harvested; it seemingly could not be an enticement to undergo the risks of harvesting in and of itself.
In this way, the reimbursement, though clearly a payment, is not a payment for the assumption of extra risk by the patient. The use of some harvested eggs for research likely does not greatly diminish the woman's chances of conception, either, so the sale of the eggs really does not impose any burden on her that she has not already chosen to accept for her own reasons - certainly nothing like the risks and burdens imposed by egg harvesting only for research purposes. (This analysis assumes that the ovarian stimulation treatment prior to harvest is not made more intensive in order to provide more eggs for research. If it is, then there is that much extra risk associated with the egg sale, but even then the sale is not the motivation for the entire assumption of risk the woman makes.)
I think this difference is significant: between undertaking the entire risk and discomfort of an egg harvest for financial compensation alone, and granting permission for research that imposes no (or minimal) risk beyond what the woman has already chosen to undergo for reasons she values and that have nothing to do with the research. Both involve a sale of eggs for research, but they are distinctly different insofar as either one entails an enticement of the subject to accept risk.
- by Kevin T. Keith on Aug 2, 2006 at 1:50 PM | link