The average payment in the US for egg donation was US$4,217, according to a recent article in the journal Fertility and Sterility. However, at least one centre told the authors that it paid $15,000 for eggs and stories abound of college students being paid tens of thousands of dollars. The American Society of Reproductive Medicine has set guidelines which stipulate that payments of $5,000 or more “require justification” and that payments over $10,000 are not appropriate.

No one is comfortable with payments for eggs, an invasive and uncomfortable process at best, and painful and dangerous at worst. Little research has been done on the long-term effects of fertility drugs.

Bioethicists also worry whether the allure of dollars to cover college fees or credit card bills might cloud young women’s judgement. “We hear about egg donors being paid enormous amounts of money, $50,000 or $60,000,” Josephine Johnston, of The Hastings Center told the New York Times. “How much is that person actually giving informed consent about the medical procedure and really listening and thinking as it’s being described and its risks are explained?”

The problem is that without compensation, women are unlikely to donate eggs, either for fertility treatment or for research. “I just completed an outreach initiative to 21 institutions across the state that we’ve funded,” Dr Geoffrey Lomax, of the Institute of Medicine, said. “No one has had an egg donated specifically for research.”

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Michael Cook

Michael Cook edits BioEdge, a bioethics newsletter, and MercatorNet, an on-line magazine whose focus is human dignity. He writes from Sydney, Australia.

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