If you’re a young woman online, you’ve no doubt been targeted by advertisements seeking egg donors. “Egg Donor Needed – $200,000 compensation,” one social media advertisement reads.
An Instagram reel featuring a fashionable young woman flashes across the screen with the caption, “When you get to live debt free in your 20s because you donated your eggs three times and made $40,000.” A Facebook ad reads: “Freeze your eggs for free, donate half, and feel really, really good about helping another family grow while also investing in your own reproductive future.” The allure of these offers is simple. Unlike the many other “side hustles” peddled on social media, this one does not require the entrepreneur to develop a specialized skill, invest significant money or time, or have a talent for sales.
Eggs are grown inside donors’ own bodies, without any conscious input or effort, and are extracted by third parties. Companies present egg donation as a morally benevolent decision with mutual benefit, an easy and simple “win-win” decision for both donor and recipient.
The separation of reproduction from natural processes has been increasingly common since the proliferation of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy.
However, egg donation is something that – at least, on its surface – has far fewer strings attached than other fertility treatments, which require long-term, often arduous participation. Companies assure women that their identities will remain anonymous, meaning that their biological children may never know who they are. While framed as a neutral – even benevolent – choice for the donor mother, what about the effect on the child who has no say in the matter?
A 2014 study found that 82% of people who know that they were conceived with the use of a donor want to know who their biological parents are. Certain countries, such as the UK and Sweden, ban the practice of anonymous egg (and sperm) donation and allow children to discover the identity of their donor parent(s) on their 18th birthday. Even if anonymity were a good defense, companies can no longer make that assurance. The proliferation of DNA testing websites such as Ancestry and 23andMe makes genetic anonymity increasingly unlikely. Children should have the right to know who their parents are, and women who choose to donate their eggs must be adequately informed that their children will likely attempt to contact them.
Figures vary, but in 2009, the average egg donor in the United States was compensated $5,890 for their donation. Today, egg donors can expect to be compensated between $5,000 and $10,000 per round from agencies seeking general donations. When parents want specific traits, they are willing to pay even more. Many agencies advertise with offers of more lucrative compensation, with figures in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Especially for women who find themselves in difficult economic situations, it’s easy to see how this decision might seem worthwhile. In fact, that sum of money could be transformational for an individual.
Advertisements for egg donation targeted at young women frequently mention how the compensation from egg donations can be used to pay off student loans or otherwise help them become debt-free.
In almost every other scenario, it’s not considered ethical to sell human biological components. Companies that pay donors for blood or plasma donations are often accused by donors and activists of their predatory practices. And it’s illegal to pay organ donors in the United States.
Why would it then be considered ethical to motivate the sale of genetic material, which has the capacity to create new life?
It would seem difficult to obtain informed consent when such a sum of money is involved. When the strategy of these companies includes targeting younger, more economically vulnerable women, the issue of consent becomes only more transparent. The financial incentive coerces young women to make significant decisions that present complicated moral questions.
Women frequently turn to donor eggs because they delay the decision to have children. In women over 40, using a donor egg when pursuing IVF makes the chance of a successful pregnancy jump from 10% to 70%. Instead of encouraging women to have children earlier in life, the donor egg industry takes eggs from younger women to use for older women. Both IVF and egg retrieval are safe, minimally invasive procedures without the risk of significant complications. However, these procedures can cause a myriad of complications that threaten health and fertility, and some experts suggest that such procedures can have damaging effects on mental health for donors and recipients.
One thing is clear: The modern practices of egg donation are predatory, regardless of one’s opinion of separating conception from natural processes. Compelled by financial incentive, countless young women are influenced by companies to make a complicated moral decision without truly informed consent.
This is far from a clear-cut, morally benevolent decision. It’s experimental at best.
The medical establishment, especially in recent years, has advocated for a variety of procedures, treatments, and medications that are now under significant scrutiny. They need to be held to account for the damage they’ve inflicted and must be prevented from conducting any further business in this matter. We need a better moral framework for major medical decisions that prioritizes safety and well-being, especially now that we have the ability to create life with such technology.
