CGS-authored

Gov. Brown vetoed controversial legislation that will allow egg donors to be compensated for oocytes, egg cells, provided for research purposes.

“Not everything in life is for sale nor should it be,” Brown said Tuesday evening in his veto statement. “In medical  procedures of this kind, genuinely informed consent is difficult because the long-term risks are not adequately known. Putting thousands of dollars on the table only compounds the problem.”

The bill, authored by Assemblymember Susan Bonilla, D-Concord, would have lifted restrictions that were put in place through 2006 legislation to protect egg donors from potential exploitation in the wake of Prop. 71, which provided $3 billion to establish a stem cell agency in California.

But Brown’s veto and developments against a similar proposal on the California Instituted for Regenerative Medicine’s (CIRM) governing board mean that California researchers will not have financial compensation as a means to recruit egg donors.

“Women can be paid to participate in every other type of research—that is standard customary practice—but reproductive research was kind of singled out,” Alice Crisci, a supporter of the bill...