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Researchers Begin to Clamor for Payment of Ova, Despite Unstudied Risks

By Peter J. Smith

LONDON, August 14, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A number of scientists have begun calling for financial compensation for women who donate their eggs in a procedure that pro-life advocates and some left-wing feminists agree puts women’s lives at risk.

Britain’s Times Online reports that a number of scientific researchers advocate the relaxation of government rules prohibiting or restricting compensation for egg donation, saying that women ought to be remunerated for the “risk, time, inconvenience, and discomfort” involved in egg donation.

“If it is ethically and legally permissible for women to offer their oocytes [eggs] for stem-cell research, and if it is acceptable to compensate volunteers for their time, effort and inconvenience when undergoing comparable invasive procedures . . . then there is a strong, presumptive reason to compensate women who provide oocytes for basic research,” concluded Dr. Hyun, justifying the practice in Nature magazine.

Scientific researchers of human cloning require egg donations from women in order to conduct a human cloning procedure known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a process which replaces the partial DNA in an ovum with full adult DNA, thereby creating a human embryo in order to destroy it for its stem-cells. The egg extraction procedure carries a number of risks, and many human cloners are suggesting they need financial incentives to entice more women to donate ova. Other researchers contend that egg donation is the same as organ donation, and believe it ought to remain free of financial consideration.

Many pro-life advocates and other critics - including some radical feminists like Judy Norsigian, author of the feminist manifesto “Our Bodies, Ourselves” -  have denounced calls to legalize monetary inducements as lures to encourage women to donate their eggs for scientific research. Poor women, they have suggested, are open to be victimized, and may respond to the offer of money for eggs despite the fact that the full extent of the risks to themselves are still unknown.

Approximately 6 per cent of women who undergo the egg extraction procedure face the risk of experiencing severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, a rare condition which can cause kidney failure or death. These, however, are only some of the possible side-effects of a procedure whose implications have never been fully scrutinized. Helen Pearson in Nature reported that studies may indicate a relation between some types of cancer and the drugs used to hyperstimulate the ovaries to produce egg follicles.

In the United Kingdom, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has once again begun a public consultation about changing the rules allowing financial compensation to egg donors. Earlier in the year the HFEA caved in to demands for permitting “altruistic” donation of ova  for human cloning research.

Pro-life charity Life spokesman Michaela O'Sullivan vilified HFEA previous decision saying, “It is disgraceful that the HFEA is to entice women to undergo invasive and risky operations in order to facilitate experimental research that offers no immediate hope of cures.”

See related LifeSite coverage:

Feminist Revolutionary Warns of Exploitation of Women with Cloning Research
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/mar/05030303.html

Barely Studied Risks of Egg-Donation Come Under Scrutiny
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/aug/06081106.html

British Woman Died of Internal Bleeding After IVF Procedure
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/aug/06081006.html"

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