WOMEN NEWS NETWORK
Tober conducts an interview for the forthcoming documentary film, “The Perfect Donor”
Commercial egg donation is a growing industry around the world with varying governance and legalities by country. Many women who’ve not been able to conceive but want to experience pregnancy and childbirth turn to egg donation. It is commonly used by couples in which the woman has poor quality or no eggs, but who want a biological child using the male’s sperm, women with no ovaries but an intact uterus, women with genetic factors that they don’t want to pass on to their children and women over the age of 39. It is also utilized among same-sex couples. The first known pregnancy achieved with a donated egg occurred in 1984. Today, more than 10,000 babies have been born worldwide from donated eggs, yet there are many complexities with the process and women who donate do so at a risk to their health.
Interim Executive Editor Jessica Buchleitner spoke with Medical Anthropologist Diane Tober, Ph.D. about her forthcoming documentary “The Perfect Donor” and the complexities of the commercial egg donation industry around the world.
Jessica Buchleitner (JB): Tell us a bit about commercial egg donation in the U.S. and globally. How prevalent is it? What are the dynamics and how do the conditions vary?
Diane Tober (DT): There are about 18,000 cycles using fresh donor eggs per year in the United States. People who use donor eggs include women who are no longer fertile themselves (either due to age, premature ovarian failure, or cancer treatment), or gay couples and single men who use an egg donor and surrogate to have children.
In the United States, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine has established a guideline that donors should not be paid more than $10,000 in order to avoid women doing it just for the money, which could be considered coercive—especially to lower-income women. However, in practice the amount an egg donor is paid varies widely. I have heard as low as $1000 in the U.S. to as high as $250,000 for a woman with certain characteristics. Often, women who are more attractive, have higher education, and have traits that couples consider desirable are paid more.
Also, women who are “proven donors”—that is they already have helped someone achieve a pregnancy—can ask for higher pay. In some cases, a woman who is paid $7500 for her first cycle, may be able to get over $10,000 for her second cycle if a pregnancy was achieved. Women often do this numerous times. In the U.S., ASRM guidelines state that she should do no more than six egg donation cycles, in part to limit the number of children per donor, but also due to potential health risks. In fact, many women go way beyond six cycles—especially when they’re donating at numerous different clinics, or internationally. There are no registries to track donor cycles, so there is really no way of knowing.
In other countries where paid donation is legal (like Spain) payment is capped at 1,000 euros. In the United Kingdom, South Africa and Australia, paid donation is highly restricted: in some cases donors must already have children of their own, they’re paid around the equivalent of $800, and in some cases must agree to have their identity released. In Spain, anonymous donations are required. In other countries, like Germany and France, paid egg donation is not permitted.
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