The following comes from an August 10 Reuters story.
A sizable share of the U.S. organizations recruiting egg donors online don’t adhere to ethical guidelines, including failing to warn of the risks of the procedure and offering extra payment for traits like good looks, according to a U.S. study.
Women are recruited to donate eggs to fulfill a growing demand by couples seeking in-vitro fertilization, but a number of websites seeking to recruit them ignore standards set by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
“I would argue that there needs to be more attention from [the society] about these agencies, because you don’t want these women exploited,” said Robert Klitzman, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University and lead author of the study that appeared in the journal Fertility & Sterility.
Ethical standards set forth by the group specify that donors should be at least 21 years old, and those between ages 18 and 20 should receive a psychiatric evaluation first.
Also, women are not to be paid for their eggs but compensated, equally, for their time. Donor traits such as college grades or previous successful donations should not result in higher payment.
But abiding by the recommendations is voluntary, and the guidelines carry no legal authority, though the society will sanction members who do not adhere to the guidelines. But that doesn’t cover non-member organizations.
“Our ability to influence the behavior of non-members is pretty limited,” said Sean Tipton, a spokesperson for the group.
To see how well recruiters follow the guidelines, Klitzman and his colleagues visited 102 websites recruiting egg donors. Some represented in vitro clinics run by a physician, and others were agencies that connect women with clinics but don’t actually provide any of the medical services.
Some 34 percent of the websites offered higher payment for certain traits, most commonly having previously donated successfully. Some also offered higher payments for educational achievement, athletic skills and good looks.
More than 40 percent of the sites also recruited women between the ages of 18 and 20.
Klitzman told Reuters Health the findings are a concern….
To read entire story, click here.
i firmly believe the ONLY egg donors should be the chickens use in chick-fil-a sandwiches!
max, in chickendom there are layers and fryers, just like in the Church.
JLS your awesome quote is worthy of a tatoo…
p.s. are you talking about franciscan friars, or dominican friars?
Just another greedy, immoral, organization acting in the name of “love.” This is one group that has been flying under the radar for awhile. The young egg donor is willing, stupidly, to undergo pain, excessive bloating, nausea, headache and other serious side effects for anywhere from $5000 to apparently $100,000. College student’s seem to be their best customers. I knew a young girl who did this twice. A fallen away catholic girl who deceived ;herself, when she said, “I just wanted to help a childless couple.”. She also took home about $8500 for each session, which lasts for about 3/4 months for 1 session. When I hear of these stories, I thank God for my beloved Catholic Church that gives us the truth. Once again though, the church must be more vocal on the sinfulness and dangers of these groups that lure our young people. Ignorance is not bliss, when it comes to our bodies and our souls!
These places must be concerned that Obama care now offers free sterilization for women 15 and older. There will be less women to farm from.
Not so, lisag. Despite global population reduction efforts, there is a constantly increasing number of people in the world.
in the world, and in this blog…
This article reminds all of us to pray for those couples who experience the heartache of not being able to conceive a child of their own. Given the booming market for IVF, they is not a small number. The Church should give more outreach to those people instead of ignoring them. Their burden is no fault of their own.
goodcause, the Church has been ignoring countless souls for decades. It took me three decades to find the Catholic Church, and I grew up in a well off area of Los Angeles. Lot of spiritual inbreeding or something I guess, because it mainly likes to circle wagons and keep apart from the ragamuffins.
JLS, it took you three DECADES to find the catholic church?
shame they didn’t have a spiriutual GPS in those days.
but i’m a convert also, from my midtwenties, and thank GOD each day for the gift of being a catholic.
i’ve heard the quote (from james joyce?) that catholicism means: “here comes everybody” but i’m not quite sure what that is supposed to suggest…perhaps it means even JLS and i were allowed to get in!
max, I grew up in WLA, in a Jew/WASP region. Catholics likely had to lay low. I’ve seen them do this even recently when in organizations hostile to Catholics. Ironic, but my father’s uncles, back in frontier Nebraska, helped build and run the world’s only remaining Catholic/Lutheran church building. The altar was at one end and the “table” at the other; the pews flip to suit the particular group. It is located in Keystone, Nebraska.
I live very near an IVF clinic. Given that IVF inevitably involves the death of human embryos, I’ve often wondered why I’ve never seen any pro-life activism there.
Dave, you can pray on that when you are reminded. That would be a start.
i wish couples experiencing the pain of not getting pregnant would cnsider adoption, rather than these bizarre high-tech methods that try to make man into GOD…
OK. CCD leaves me scratching my head again. So is egg donation OK with the Church? I’m not sure why CCD posted this article. We are not supposed to do IVF so why would we need this warning about unethical egg donor recruiters??????
The editor replies: To bring to your attention what is going on in our culture.
Thanks for your answer! Should there not be a note that explains Catholic teaching? Many Catholics do not see anything wrong with IVF, A director of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Boston was quoted as saying that most Catholics who use reproductive technologies are unaware of Catholic moral teaching in this area. I never heard of egg donation before this article.
The big con being done on women selling their eggs is being led to believe they are guaranteed anonimity. If a child should result from the egg and IVF, these women are told there is no need to worry about any future responsibility. They can just walk away. The truth seems to be far different. These IVF children have the weight of a global movement to assure them biological identity-that is-knowing the egg donor, their med history/genetics, and siblings. No woman can escape these mandates should the law eventually change. Egg donation for IVF could be a gift that keeps the donor involved far beyond the time of donation. The battle over biological identity rights is growing and every egg donor needs to know this.