Category: Let's talk
Today the human fertilisation and embryology authority launched a debate with reference to sperm and egg doners. Apparently, there is a cronic shortage of sperm and egg doners in this country, with only 93 sperm doners coming forward in the past year. It has been debated that perhaps if people were paid to donate their eggs/sperm, more might come forward. However, it is thought that if people were paid, the wrong kind of people may come forward as potential doners, and that some may withhold information about themselves such as medical history, genetic illnesses etc, in order that they might be paid for donations. So what do you think, if you were offered money, would you donate your eggs/sperm if you were able to? Bearing in mind that in order to donate eggs, the woman does have to go through an invasive procedure and weeks of hormone injections etc. for guys this is obviously a far easier procedure grins. Or do you think, as I do that paying people for donations is turning children into a commodity. After all, donating your eggs or sperm may ultimately result in someone having a child.
Hmmmm, interesting topic. Why do you say paying sperm/egg doners for their "products" turns children into a comodity? That's the part of your post I don't quite understand. I mean, you can adopt children today and it is an expensive producer. Isn't that more of turning children into a comodity than anything else, then there is external fertilization and other procedures that help people having children that could not have them in the usual manner. All of these you have to pay for, depending on country and insurance etc, so I don't see why buying the actual genetic material is more of a materialization of children than, say, paying a hospital for implanting a fertilized egg in the mother. And just because you paid 5000 pounds to be able to conceive doesn't mean you view your child as a commodity. It's hard to say, technology is imposing all these new existential questions on us, when do we allow people to die, how much can we create life, should we clone a human being etc.
I would have no problem with donating per say (not that I could given my genetic risk factor) but I think it's not about the money, it's more about knowing that you are responsible for creating life and at that it's life you may never know off and may never know off you and to me that is just not what I want. I don't have any problems with peple being ok with that per say but I'd rather be involved in any life my eehm production is involved n.
cheers
-B
it makes them a commodity because people are selling out. if you give your child up for adoption you don't sell it, you sign away parental responsibility of the child, and the person who adopts that child doesn't go down to the child shop and pick a child and pay over the cash. When we pay for fertility treatments, we pay for the procedures because we need medically trained professionals and drugs in order for those fertility treatments to work. If you donate sperm or eggs you currently receive a small fee, £15 per sperm donation and £60 per egg donation, (that's per cycle not per egg), that amounts to expenses and essentially I have no problem with that, but in the states an egg doner can receive $5000 and essentially that egg doner is then selling her eggs and making a profit on them.
hmmm, it's still just your genetic material, it's not your child, it's only half of the genetic recipe for the child ;) everything is for sale in the U.S. you should know that by now <grin>. I have to ask my boss but I thought he paid a lot of money for adopting his child from Polland, I think if nothing else the government or some such organization makes a good deal of money for child adoptions which I have more of a moral issue with then people getting paid for their donations.
It's all a matter of where we draw the line I suppose. I still think doctors making money of facilitating the fertilization is not that dissimilar for you having to pay for the genetic material. I do have a problem with the fact that the prices are so high, I mean, it does not take much eehm skilled labor or suffering to donate this stuff and I always think the pay should be proportional to the effort ;) for some guys the pay should be very minimal indeed <grin> probably just a sexually explicit movie to help them deposit their samples <grin>.
I will look at that adoption thing, I am curious t now to see what fees are involved.
Cheers
-B
Well it depends where you adopt from. if you adopt within the country you live in, i.e. US/UK, you wouldn't have to pay money for the child you are adopting.It's true that some international adoptions require some payment, but the reasons for this are often that the countries involved are very poor countries, and that by adopting children from these countries you are both helping out the child to gain a better life, and helping the country who are not able to take care of all its citizins.
And I think there is a vast difference between paying for a service, and being paid for it. i.e. if you are unable to have a child naturally, it goes without saying that you would have to pay someone to enable you to have a child, be it through drugs, or more invasive treatments. And while it is true that eggs/sperm are essentially just genetic material, they are still the basis to life. without eggs, or sperm, you cannot create another life. sure it may start out as an egg, but ultimately, it will become a child. And where do we draw the line, will couples be able to sell unwanted embrios in future? if you have a successful IVF cycle but have embrios left could you sell those as well and make a profit?
Wait, so you are saying it's ok to "buy" children from developng countries because you are helping those countries out? How is that different from paying for a poor guy's sperm because you need the sperm and he needs the money?
I'm a bit confused by that logic. *smiels* and, well, why not sell frozen unwanted embryos, is that so wrong, if the peole care enough to spend a lot of money on embryos aren't they likely to become good and loving parents? And if they had the choice I"m sure they'd much rather make the children themselves so it's not as if this market can really be that much abused, can it?
Of course it can! I don’t know the laws on international adoptions so I’m not able to comment on exactly how those work. It’s never right to buy a child, but let’s not forget that if these children aren’t adopted by wealthy Americans who can afford to give them a good home, then their prospects are not good. They will most likely spend the rest of their lives in orphanages, and when they’re old enough will most likely go out and live on the streets of the countries they were born in, will themselves have children they are unable to care for, and those children will in turn most likely end up in the same orphanages their parents came from. And let’s not forget that these children are, actual, children! Not a vile of sperm or some eggs, they are real people who need a home, now! And so while I could never condone someone paying money to adopt such a child, I think that paying money for such a child is definitely better than leaving it languishing in an orphanage in some third world country.
Now back to the donated eggs/sperm, it is true that people who will pay a lot of money to have a child are most likely to give that child a good upbringing, of course nothing is 100% certain and no one can be sure they will be a good parent until they actually become one, but it’s true that the motives of those type people are, for the most part, genuine. But what of the people who are selling the eggs/sperm. Who can be sure that their motives are as genuine? Money can do strange things to people, and if anyone could donate eggs/sperm and be paid for it, it is likely that some people would lie about their medical history in order to obtain the sums of money that are being talked about. Let’s use an example here. Some years ago, a man in Australia made several sperm donations and was paid a sum of money for each donation. Subsequently, several women died, because this individual was infected with the HIV virus and had not told the clinic about it. Now people can be tested for this and many other viruses. In this country, doners are screened before they give a sample, the sample is frozen for six months and the doner is then screened again to ensure that he is not suffering from any known STD’s, but you can’t screen for genetic conditions. How easy would it be to lie when asked “do you or any members of your family suffer from any genetic condition”? After all, if you’re being paid 5 grand a time to donate your eggs you could potentially make quite a good bit of money for it! And meanwhile the recipients of those eggs/sperm would be oblivious to the fact they could be carrying a child with a potentially debilitating illness or disability.
If you only pay costs, you are far more likely to get doners who donate because they genuinely want to help a childless couple to conceive a child, and it will illiminate those who are just out to sell whatever it is they have to sell in order to make a quick buck.
I'd do it because I could, not because I wanted the money. It's not something I've ever really considered. I always intended on giving blood, but never have due to the fact that I am unable too at the moment, but if I could, I would. I've never considered egg donation and I know nothing about the process etc, but it is a possibility I would consider looking in too.
I can't believe I just posted that when I hadnt' evne finished! lol. What I was intending to go on to say, was that, in theory, although this is a good idea, there is also the moralities of it, if that makes sense. Imagine you are that child, and you grow up to find out that your parents aren't your parents. Now, if you were adopted, I would imagine, that there are possibilities of you feeling as though you were given away etc. I know that that has happened, and does happen. So, from the child's perspective, how would you feel if you found out that you were simply a donation from somewhere? Adopted children sometimes want to find their real parents... Is this not something to take in to consideration in this case also? If adopted children are allowed to look for their biological parents, why shouldn't children who have been conceived in such a way be able to do the same thing? Imagine all of the issues this can throw up for them as the child, and for the parents, both biological and otherwise.
SB, I do agree about the adoption thing although it still falls under the definition of selling children, in a way, but in this case I suppose it is also the solution that makes the most sense. However it could be argued, although not convincingly that if a country makes a lot of money on selling children who are living in misery they may not have much of an incentive to change that child's situation or come up with social support systems since they've discovered that a much easier and more profitable solution is to have rich foreigners come and pay them for taking the problem off their hands. I think adoption is not so wide sprad at this point that this is actually an issue but it could become one, just like they are discussing the fact that excessive food donations to developing countries are causing the governments to do nothing about infrastructure and investments and building something themsevles.
But with egg/sperm giving. I don't think the rewards should be that huge, not $5000, like I said, an egg probably a bit more than sperm, the payment should perhaps reflect the difficulty involved in the giving process and compensate the person for the disconfort he/she goes through ( a lot less in "his" case) but if there is a genuine shortage of doners and lots of recipients I think it's ok to let the market decide the price somewhat. I agree with you about the problems but I think the testing of the genetic material should be done at the doners expense and/or by contract between that person and the people adopting. You could have a basic screening procedure or standards that everyone has to meet and then stricter criteria where more research into family history / genetics disorders etc is needed, I mean, after all, when you meet someone and you fall in love and you get pregnant, say within a couple of months, what do you know about the guy's genetic history, there may be cases where he does not even know about genetic issues in his family, I think the quality of donated sperm/eggs should at least match that you would expect to get from "natural sources" but those are different too, depending who the person is, how love you've known him/her iwhether it was an accident etc.
So, I think basically that you'd need to segment the doners and price the material accordingly, if you want higher quality and better testing you pay more, they might receive a bit more having agreed to go through such testing. It's a tricky market for sure.
cheers
-B
Actually with regard to anonymity, the law has recently changed, and the children of sperm/egg doners will be allowed to trace their biological parents when they reach the age of 18. This has brought with it a different set of arguments and problems, since the law has changed, the number of doners has decreased, because most doners simply wish to give someone the opportunity to have a child, and not have that child come knocking at their door in 18 years time.
With regard to what’s involved in becoming an egg doner, well the procedure is somewhat of an invasive one, similar to what you have to go through when you undergo IVF treatment, although not with the embrio transfer of course. A woman has to take a two week course of a drug which will put her body into menopause, this is done with a nasal spray, after that she has to take a two week course of injections which stimulate the ovaries to produce eggs, the drug is the same one that enables a woman to ovulate, but more of the drug is injected in order that she will produce more eggs. After that, she has to go into the clinic for the egg retrieval, a long needle is inserted into the ovary and draws out the eggs one by one. This is somewhat of an invasive procedure and is apparently not very comfortable. After that, the woman goes home and her work is done. As for how sperm is donated … well I think we all know how that’s done, grins.
And b when you talk of it as material, you make it sound so clinical! Sure, eggs/sperm are not actual children, but they have the potential to become children. Sure you may donate your sperm and receive a sum of money for it, but let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture here! In two/three years time you could be walking through the park and see a mother with her child playing on the swings and that child could be the result of you donating that sperm. Sperm/eggs aren’t paintings, or books, or trinkets that you can sell to make cash, there are consequences to selling sperm/egs.
Hmmm, I understand everyone's point here, and it is a complicated issue. What I would say is that on one hand, it hardly seems fair that some people, who would make amazing parents cannot for one reason or another, cannot bear children, whilst millions of other people have children, and fuck their lives up on a daily basis. And that is a real tragedy of life. There definetely needs something to be done, as the numbers of donors is poor at the moment. I can see the logic in paying someone to donate sperm or eggs, particularly as it is an invasive procedure for a woman, and lets face it, women only have a finite number of eggs where guys produce sperm throughout life. And if guys are gonna jerk off left right and centre and waste their sperm, then a financial incentive might encourage them to deposit it for someone who really wants a baby. I'm not sure about it attracting the 'wrong types of people', because those people could donate now and we wouldn't know about it. I think the key is making it more publically aware, so that more people know about the need for sperm and egg donors, just like they do for blood and bone marrow donations. I do believe that if it was a topic people knew more about, then the donations would increase.
Well Iagree that there are a lot of potentially wonderful parents out there who are unable to conceive, but that follows in so many aspects of life. There are a lot of good musicians out there who are unable to strike a record deal, while the charts are full of crap who don’t have an ounce of talent to show for it, that’s just life, and is unfortunate. Fact is, nobody has the right to have a child, a child is a privilege, and while life deals us some unfair hands sometimes, I don’t believe that the answer is to throw money at the problem in order to find the solution.
Apart from that, what about the gene pool. Let’s say we start paying people to donate eggs/sperm, let’s use sperm as a tipicle example. We pay guys a sum of money to donate sperm, therefore, these guys, possibly poor students as so regularly has happened in other countries, go to the sperm bank once a week and deposit their donation. That’s 52 donations a year, 52 potential pregnancies. What happens if these children grow up in the same town and fall in love. Not knowing who their biological parent is, the results could be catastrophic. The more donations people give, the more chance there is that half brothers and sisters could end up together. In fact such a situation happened in a small town in America. An apparently reputable fertility specialist inseminated women with his own sperm, and the result was 76 children who were biologically his, all in the one town. The result is that there is now a register of all these children, in case they ever fall in love and wish to marry. It’s just another thing that needs to be taken into consideration when asking people to donate more.
Yeah, adopting can be very expensive. Eben if you are adopting in the same state. A friend of mine just adopted and was telling mehow much it was. I forget but yeah, so not cheap!
I see your point SugarBaby, but then what if there was a guy out there anyway that was donating on a weekly basis, and fact is, at the moment, there are so few sperm donors, that surely the chances of interfering with the gene pool are more likely if the same person donates regularly than if there are loads new donors? I think there should be some sort of restriction saying you can only donate so many times per year... and there might be, I don't know enough about it to comment. The fact is, I'm sure there would be less interferance with the gene pool if more people donated, as there would be greater amounts of new sperm and eggs to go around. And therefore, if providing a little financial incentive to donate achieves this, then perhaps it is better in the long run? I do still stand by my thoughts that it is a process that needs to be tightly controlled, and for sure more public awareness is essential.