The fertility watchdog is considering offering cash to egg and sperm donors as a means of tackling the severe shortage for people desperate for a baby.
Many, however, don't like the idea of handing over money for spare human parts, warning it may be a step too far. Some say that money could well induce poor, vulnerable women to undertake the "significant health risks" involved in donation. Unlike the straightforward process of donating sperm, offering eggs is a much more complicated process that is not risk free.
A female donor must effectively go through a cycle of IVF herself, which involves daily injections to stimulate her ovaries into releasing eggs which are then harvested under anaesthetic. The main concern and principle health risk is that she develops ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which can in the most extreme cases be fatal. The harvesting of eggs is invasive and time-consuming, yet at the moment the woman can only claim the same as a man who donates his sperm - a maximum of just £250!
Laura Witjens of the National Gamete Donation Trust, says many donors are left out of pocket and there is no distinction between the sperm and the egg donor.
The chairwoman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), Professor Lisa Jardine, said that the situation did need to be reviewed if more women were going to volunteer to donate and help with the chronic shortage of eggs in this country. There has also been a decline in the number of sperm donors, which most attribute to the removal of anonymity for those who donate.
The shortage of sperm and eggs has led to the rise in "fertility tourism" from Britain - often to countries where generous compensation payments are made to those who give. For example, Spain where relatively high payments has no shortage of donors. The HFEA is now set for a major review of the rules regarding compensation for donation along with upper and lower age limits for donors and sperm donations between family members, .
Donna Dickenson, emeritus professor of medical ethics and humanities at the University of London, is against such payment as she says it creates a market in body parts. "I have immense sympathy for the women who want these eggs because they desperately want a baby, but we have to think about the wellbeing of the women who are donating, and why they are doing so."
Dr Tony Rutherford, the head of the British Fertility Society, believes that "...any plans to introduce higher compensation need to be very carefully considered and monitored. The women themselves would need to be carefully selected and this certainly isn't something we would want to see people making a career out of, doing over and over again....A figure in the region of £1,000 to £1,500 would seem a reasonable one."
"We need to set a price which respects the contribution, but is not a way to make a living," says Laura Witjens of the National Gamete Donation Trust. "And what we also need to guard against is pushing up the price of treatment so that many couples would be completely left out."
In fact both those for and against an increased compensation agree that the principle of donating for cash is already established. For those having problems conceiving but who can't afford IVF, "egg sharing" programmes offer them the option of donating their eggs to other infertile couples in exchange for discounted or even free treatment for themselves. As IVF prices continue to rise, this is a form of compensation that can be worth thousands of pounds.
December 2009
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Autumn-Winter 2009 News
