The Commercialization of Human Eggs in Mitochondrial Replacement Research
By Donna L. Dickenson,
The New Bioethics, Vol. 19, No. 1
| 03. 04. 2014
After the development of induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs) in 2007, the pressure to commercialize women’s eggs for stem cell research could have been expected to lessen. However, the pressure to harvest human eggs in large quantities for research has not diminished; rather, it has taken different directions, for example in germline mitochondrial research. Yet there has been little acknowledgement of these technologies’ need for human eggs, the possible risks to women and the ethical issues concerning potential exploitation. Rather, there has been a renewed campaign to legalize payment for eggs in research, although the actual scientific advances are at best modest. This article shows why a market in women’s eggs is ethically problematic in terms of the doctor’s duty to do no harm and the limitations of ‘informed’ consent.
Introduction: Just When You Thought it was Safe to Go Back in the
Water...
For the past decade I have been concerned about both the threat of an international trade in human ova for stem cell research and the way in which that troubling possibility has been largely ignored in...
Related Articles
By Emma McDonald Kennedy
| 09.25.2025
In the leadup to the 2024 election, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to make IVF more accessible. He made the commitment central to his campaign, even referring to himself as the “father of IVF.” In his first month in office, Trump issued an executive order promising to expand IVF access. The order set a 90-day deadline for policy recommendations for “lowering costs and reducing barriers to IVF,” although it didn’t make any substantive reproductive healthcare policy changes.
The response to the...
Sir Francis Galton, 1890s, by Eveleen Myers (née Tennant)
npg.org
Public Domain via Wikipedia
As has been discussed in recent issues of Biopolitical Times (1, 2), there are, increasingly, companies that claim to be selling parents better babies by selecting the “best” embryos. These services don’t come cheap – think $50,000, or even more, for embryo testing, plus perhaps as much again for IVF and concomitant services. To most of us, that is extremely expensive...
By Margaux MacColl, The San Francisco Standard | 09.17.2025
Designer babies are coming soon to an IVF clinic near you.
Nucleus Genomics, founded by Kian Sadeghi in 2020, when he was just 20, got its start analyzing genomes to weigh a person’s risk of everything from cancer to ADHD...
By Marianne Lamers, NEMO Kennislink [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 09.23.2025
Een rijtje gespreide vulva’s gaapt de bezoeker aan. Zó ziet een bevalling eruit, en zó een baarmoeder met foetus. Een zwangerschap, maar dan zonder zwangere vrouw, gestript van zorgen, gêne en pijn. De zwangerschapsmodellen en oefenbekkens, te zien in de...