My last task of the semester is to finish up a paper on human egg donation. I’ve been working on it off and on all semester and am nearly done. But I thought I’d post chunks of it to see if anyone is interested in reading it. Feedback is appreciated, especially if you notice any typos. ;-) Here’s the early part of the paper…

Today on campuses across the nation, student newspapers advertise top dollar to healthy, intelligent, beautiful, young women who are willing to donate their eggs. Those who donate will graduate with far less college debt. Because of these women’s donations, couples across the globe who have struggled with infertility will be able to conceive children. Is it possible that such a process could be anything but positive? In this paper I will examine the ethical implications of egg donation. I will spend time examining egg donation’s role in the potential exploitation and endangerment of women, the commodification of children, and a series of social and familial issues.

INTRODUCTORY DEFINITIONS

Before moving too far, it would be helpful to define a few terms. A gamete is a cell that has the potential to form a new organism when joined with another gamete. In humans these cells are eggs and sperm. Female gametes, sometimes called ova (singular is ovum), are called oocytes (singular is oocyte) before they mature. I will use the term eggs to refer to female gametes in general and will use the more specific terms when necessary.

The topic of the paper is egg donation, which is used in certain forms of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). ARTs treat infertility, generally by artificial means such as introducing a third party and/or manipulating gametes in a laboratory. In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the ART treatment that makes use of most donor eggs.

Egg donation refers to the process whereby a woman agrees to undergo fertility treatments that cause several of her eggs to mature, has those eggs surgically harvested, and allows them to be used in the IVF cycle of another woman, often one who is unable to produce eggs of her own in sufficient quantity or of viable quality.

INFERTILITY & EGG DONATION IN THE UNITED STATES

U.S. Infertility Rates

Data compiled by the CDC from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth demonstrates that infertility affects a large number of women. According to this survey, around 7.3 million women between the ages of 15 and 44 (11.8% of all American women in that age range) have an impaired ability to have children, and 2.1 million married women (7.4%) between those same ages are technically infertile (meaning they tried to get pregnant for at least 12 consecutive months and did not succeed).

The Data on the Use of ART, IVF, and Egg Donations

Of these 7.3 million American women, 184,000 (0.3%) pursued ART. Of those who used ART, most pursued IVF treatments. An industry analysis done in August of 2009 says, “ART now produces more than 50,000 babies per year in the U.S. via 142,000 IVF procedures (nearly tripled since 1999), and demand is growing from the ranks of 7+ million infertile women.” Though the causes behind infertility are legion, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) says that a quarter of all infertile women have problems with ovulation, which would lead many of them to need donated eggs in order to reproduce. ASRM further reports, “donor eggs are used in nearly 10% of all ART cycles in the United States” As for the number of children born from donated eggs, the Boston Globe reports that in 2005, “the most recent year federal statistics are available, about 6,500 women successfully delivered babies with egg donors, an 88 percent increase from five years earlier” Now that we have the numbers for why eggs are needed for ARTs, we will look briefly at why women choose donor eggs and then will turn to the specifics of the egg donation process itself, which will surface a few ethical issues and begin the ethical deliberation on our topic.

Written at 7:26 pm         ||         Filed under: General
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