Why Oocyte Donation (Egg Donation) is a Bad Idea

Why Oocyte Donation (Egg Donation) is a Bad Idea - In March 2006, USA Today reported that oocyte donation, also known as egg donation, has turned into a big business on college campuses. Fertility clinics were offering college women under 29 and with high SAT scores as much as $10,000 to donate their eggs. (Source: USA Today) But what happens in oocyte donation? Oocyte donation, when examined more closely, is a bad idea all the way around - it raises ethical concerns as well as serious potential health side-effects for the donor.

Oocyte donation - ethical concerns about the business of fertility

Before you seriously consider oocyte donation, consider that it has become a $3 billion per year business for fertility clinics. Fertility clinics would present themselves to us as fulfilling the dreams of women who are unable to get pregnant naturally to get pregnant through oocyte "donation" (although "oocyte selling" would be a more appropriate term), and pitch oocyte "donation" to college students as a way to make money AND fulfill someone else's dreams.

But as the Centers for Disease Control reported about a 2005 study of IVF (in vitro fertilization) success rates, only about 29% of IVF attempts actually result in a live birth (Source: CDC.gov). So will your oocyte donation actually fulfill someone else's dreams? There's a 71% chance that it will not. That also means that 71% of the time, fertility clinics can only offer the childless couple a shrug and a pat on the back, yet walk away with huge sums of their money.

Why will a fertility clinic or egg broker pay so much for your oocyte donation? Simple math: because they stand to profit from it.

It would only be fair to mention here that not all fertility clinics are "bad guys" and many families have benefited from their help. However, considering that oocyte donation has many health risks (see below) and other ethical concerns, is egg donation really worth it?

Your oocyte donation may not even go to a fertility clinic!

And by the way, a lot of those $10,000 newspaper ads for oocyte donation come not from fertility clinics at all, but from "egg brokers" - middlemen who are not in the business of giving children to the childless, but in the business of harvesting and selling eggs. Sometimes they will use a "bait and switch" tactic of offering a large amount of money for oocyte donation in the ad, but when a representative actually calls you, they will offer you a lower amount offered by a particularly desperate childless couple - but this is bogus! (Source: NY State Department of Health)

Oocyte donation - a list of health risks for the donor

College students need money. And sometimes college students get so desperate for money, they will consider selling off a part of their body - this is what oocyte "donation" and sperm "donation" really amounts to. But with oocyte donation in particular, there are many health risks involved for the egg donor. Here are a few of them:

1. At the beginning of the process of oocyte donation, you'll receive injections to stimulate the production of many eggs. This will result in all sorts of side effects, including hormonally-induced mood swings, breast tenderness, fatigue, sleep problems, body aches, headaches, and vision problems. Rare but severe results can include kidney failure and even hospitalization.
2. The long-term side-effects of the fertility drugs used in oocyte donation are unknown.
3. During the egg retrieval process of oocyte donation, rare but dangerous risks include your bowel, bladder, or blood vessels being accidentally punctured. And as a result of this, you could even face emergency abdominal surgery.
4. If any of the above complications occur, you could jeopardize your own future fertility. (Source: NY State Department of Health)

Finally, if you have pro-life leanings, oocyte donation is a very bad idea

Just in case you're wondering, the author of this article votes pro-choice, but surely everyone can see the ethical dilemma faced when IVF leads a woman to carry multiple fetuses at once, some of which she may choose to abort. This is a relatively common occurrence in the IVF process, so your oocyte donation could very well lead to one or more fetuses being aborted. Therefore, if you are pro-life, or pro-choice with some ethical concerns, think twice before undertaking the process of oocyte donation.

In short, there is only one good thing that can be said about oocyte donation - it leads to happiness for some families - but there are a lot more bad things that can be said about oocyte donation. If you are considering donating your eggs, be sure to thoroughly research the process, its side-effects, and think carefully about the ethics of the situation before you get involved. Remember that IVF is a business - and do you really want your own biological child to be treated as a mere commodity?