Will the UK legalize paying women for their eggs?
The UK Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority (HFEA), threatened with abolition but still in business, is launching "a three-month public consultation about sperm and egg donation." The announcement says it will focus on three main areas of policy:
- The level of compensation for donors [currently allowed for expenses and loss of income only]
- The number of families a donor can help to create [currently a maximum of 10]
- Family donation [that is, within a family: siblings, cousins, parent/child, etc.]
It is a bureaucratic maxim that no consultation should be undertaken until decision-makers have already made up their minds. So it's worth recalling what Lisa Jardine, the head of HFEA, told the Times as long ago as July 2009:
"I'm not saying the decision arrived at before I became chair wasn't the right one at the time," she said. "But given the evidence that egg shortage is driving women overseas, I feel a responsibility to look at it again."
As a wise and experienced civil servant, she said nothing stronger. She didn't need to. The headline writer got it right, even then:
- Pay donors to end the shortage of IVF eggs, says watchdog
Presumably the ducks have now been lined up, since the consultation is starting. Points two and three are pretty clearly dust kicked up to confuse the issue; but the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph headlines both got to the nub:
- IVF egg donors 'to be paid thousands': Watchdog wants to lift £250 limit on compensation
- Women could be paid for donating their eggs to infertile couples: A major review of the rules governing fertility treatment could lead to women being paid thousands of pounds to donate their eggs to infertile couples.
Set aside the linguistic confusion of "paying" for "donation" — selling gametes is illegal in the UK. An EU Directive [pdf] restricts compensation "to making good the expenses and inconveniences related to the donation." There is potentially some wiggle room in the wording; the HFEA announcement makes much of the fact that Spain established a "blanket fee for loss of earnings, expenses and inconvenience" of 900 Euros (about £765, or $1200). However, Walter Merricks, Chair of the Donor Conception Network and a member of HFEA when the policy was last considered (indeed a former Chair), explains:
We decided that out-of-pocket expenses could be paid, but nothing above that. Anything else, we believed, would violate the principle of altruism and voluntariness.
We saw this as important for the wellbeing and self-worth of donors, recipients and donor conceived individuals; all of them should be able to feel that they had participated in, or been conceived under, arrangements underpinned by appropriate ethical principles.
A further concern is that the commercialization of gametes may also contribute to the privatization of ART services in the UK. Already, several regions of the National Health Service have drastically cut back funding for fertility treatment. This immediately works to the benefit of the private industry, and limits access to those who can afford to pay out of pocket.
For much more, see the well-documented and extensively linked Press Release by No2Eggsploitation and Human Genetics Alert, which zeroes in on the key issues:
- HFEA plans for egg donor compensation will lead to exploitation of women
- Ethics takes second place to free market dogma and IVF industry demands
Alex Plows of No2Eggsploitation insists that "We must not allow IVF business interests and free-market dogma to overthrow basic ethical values." David King of Human Genetics Alert put it even more clearly, telling the Daily Mail:
We believe it is simply wrong to turn human eggs into commodities.
The HFEA "Have Your Say" page is here. It includes some data and background information, along with a summary of ethical principles. The closing date for responses is April 8th, and policy decisions will be made by July.
Previously on Biopolitical Times: