Asian Women Command Premium Prices for Egg Donation in U.S.
By Shan Li,
Los Angeles Times
| 05. 03. 2012
It's technically called an egg "donation." But if you're a young Asian woman, donating your eggs to an infertile couple can fetch enough cash to buy a used car or perhaps a semester at college.
The same market forces that drive the price of cotton, copper and other commodities — supply and demand — have allowed Asian women to command about $10,000 to $20,000 for their eggs, also known as gametes or ova.
Women of other ethnic groups typically get about $6,000 when they can sell their eggs, but they often can't for lack of demand, according to donation agencies and fertility clinics.
Clinic operators say the premium paid to Asian women reflects the shortage of willing donors for the growing numbers of infertile Asian couples who want a child who looks like they do. But the competition among these clinics — including ads screaming "ASIAN EGG DONORS NEEDED" in college newspapers — has spotlighted the commercial aspects of what is supposed to be an act of benevolence.
Federal law bans the sale of human organs, but selling eggs is...
Related Articles
By Katherine Long, Ben Foldy, and Lingling Wei, The Wall Street Journal | 12.13.2025
Inside a closed Los Angeles courtroom, something wasn’t right.
Clerks working for family court Judge Amy Pellman were reviewing routine surrogacy petitions when they spotted an unusual pattern: the same name, again and again.
A Chinese billionaire was seeking parental...
By Sarah A. Topol, The New York Times Magazine | 12.14.2025
The women in House 3 rarely had a chance to speak to the women in House 5, but when they did, the things they heard scared them. They didn’t actually know where House 5 was, only that it was huge...
By Sarah Kliff, The New York Times | 12.10.2025
Micah Nerio had known since his early 30s that he wanted to be a father, even if he did not have a partner. He spent a decade saving up to pursue surrogacy, an expensive process where he would create embryos...
By Carter Sherman, The Guardian | 12.08.2025
A huge defense policy bill, revealed by US lawmakers on Sunday, does not include a provision that would have provided broad healthcare coverage for in vitro fertilization (IVF) for active-duty members of the military, despite Donald Trump’s pledge...
