Increase in Egg Donors Raises Concerns

Comedian Jennifer Dziura, a former egg donor who is hoping to donate another egg, poses for a photo before going on stage to perform a stand up at Petes Candy Store in Brooklyn, NY, on Monday, Jan. 29, 2007. (AP Photo/Adam Rountree) (Adam Rountree - AP)

Still, some egg brokers _ particularly those in the East and West _ are ignoring suggestions for a cap on compensation, and paying women more.

"Egg Donors Wanted" ads are common on the Internet, in college newspapers and on city trains. And with no federal laws limiting donor fees _ and fertility doctors conceding the difficulties of policing their own industry _ one ethicist says that eggs have quickly become "commoditized."

"It does feel a little more like the Wild West than it ought to," says Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, director of the University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics. And he only sees the problem growing as states such as California move closer to funding major stem-cell research, requiring more donor eggs.

"We worry that we offer people so much money that they are blind to the risk and their motivation is strictly the money," Kahn says.

That's the very reason, he notes, that it is illegal to sell an organ, such as a kidney, for donation. "So I'm not comfortable saying we should start that with human eggs," he says.

A small survey from an Illinois clinic, included at a recent ASRM meeting, found that donors used compensation for everything from savings and down-payments on property to school expenses and car payments. Half of them also used some of the money to pay credit card debt and other loans.

Kristin McKenna, a 25-year-old project manager at a marketing company in suburban Atlanta, donated eggs to help build her savings.

"It does feel weird to know there's a child out there," says McKenna, who's signed up to donate again. "But I'm just a small piece of the puzzle.

"If those two people (who got her eggs) weren't there wanting a child, that child would not exist."

Dr. Lorna Marshall, a fertility specialist in Seattle, says egg recipients often ask to write letters of gratitude to their donors, who remain anonymous in most cases.

But when it comes to money, she asks them to steer clear of donors who get more than $5,000, no matter the circumstances.

Occasionally, Marshall also has had to reject eggs from donors who've been OK'd by a private egg broker, but are younger than 21, the minimum age recommended by the ASRM. The thought is that, by that age, a young woman is old enough to better understand the choice she's making.