h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If you happened to be male, and medically able to do so?

Currently a child born as result of artifical insemination by donor cannot find out the indentity of the donor. If this changed would you be more or less likely to dontate?

Just wondered

I was aSked to. Twenty odd years ago when I went to university AID had just become a reality but for some strange reason it was only accepted from uni students. You were to be paid £7, which even then wasn't very much. Obviously you were worried that it might be used for your sister or something but the safeguards were that they would take all your details and keep them to make sure this wouldn't happen.
In the end I decided against it, it was the thought that I could pass my own child on the street and not even know it that was too much. Now, when I realise that it's not so much the medical and social criteria, but sometimes plain money that does the talking I'm glad I didn't. I would not want to think that I had helped father a child to someone who couldn't stand the thought of any man, let alone me touching them.

Would that include a lesbian couple?

I'ts not just women who 'can't stand a man to touch them' who have to use artificial methods to have a child though! What about women who can't concieve naturally due to a physical problem with themselves or their partner? Or even as Z said..Lesbian couples? they have a right to have children too I feel.

I have myself considered egg donation, but I'm not sure how to go about it and am pretty sure you have to be certain you don't want any more choldren first and I do want more. I wouldn't have the problem of feeling like I'd given up a child I don't think as I see it as the woman who caried the child for 9 months would truly be it's mother..am I odd there?

I don't think there is the critera about not wanting any more children, If you're serious about it, your GP would know the contact details for a local hospital that provides fertility treatment.

If you're seriously considering it, then why not ask the next time your see your GP for a repeat prescription?

Egg donation is slightly different. By the time a woman has gone a few months past puberty she has all her eggs stored in her ovaries and will not make any more, which is why treatments such as chemotherapy are so dangerous to a woman's fertility. When I considered donating I genuinely believed that it was to help childless couples, they wanted a large a base as they could get so that they could generally match you to the receivers partner in height, hair colour etc. There is now a sperm bank in California which only uses the sperm from Nobel Prize Winners, woman who use it often are not interested in forming a relationship and starting a family but in a designer baby who will make them look good. As for a lesbian couple, there is nothing I can do and if they're happy about it then good for them - but it won't be with my help. Non pc? Very.

It's something i've thought about a few times so it probably is about time I made further enquiries , will speak to the doctor next time I'm there Though I only have one ovary now so I'm not sure how keen they'd be.

Seen one of those brilliant BBC ten minute shorts a little while back. A nice Jewish woman was donating, apparantly it is not non-kosher as long as the donator is Jewish. Involves an overnight stay in hospital but if you do volunteer, believe me, they will welcome you with open arms

How much do they pay?

For egg donation, the medical criteria are somewhat stricter than for sperm donation. They usually won't accept you if you have a history of any significant medical problems whatsoever (even something like asthma can rule you out, in some cases). Being overweight can also rule you out, both for medical reasons (obesity affects ovulation) and because people paying large sums of money for eggs usually want good looking ones.

You have to give yourself daily hormone shots for a few weeks, to stimulate your ovary to release more than one egg for that month. The shots are not without side effects.

When you ovulate, they go in and collect all the eggs you released that month -- with most women, it's somewhere between 4-10, I believe. I think you may need to be under anaesthesia while they do the collection. However, it does not seem to have any impact on your future ability to have children -- they don't take the whole ovary, after all, just the eggs that ovary released that month.

Because donating eggs requires so much more effort and risk than donating sperm, you get paid quite a bit more for it, at least here in the US. Here, men might get paid $50 for donating sperm, but women commonly are paid any where between $2,000-10,000 for donating eggs.

I don't think the NHS pay anything, but a private clinic...aye there's the rub.

If I did it wouldn't be for the money. And since when does being overweight (or even underweight) stop you being good looking?

"And since when does being overweight (or even underweight) stop you being good looking?"

In reality, it doesn't. But people who are paying large sums of money for an egg donor are often in a place where their perspective has become a little... stretched. After going through years of unsuccessful fertility treatments, people sometimes start to fixate on having what they think of as the "perfect" baby, not just any baby.

And some are using egg donors to begin with because they are trying to avoid passing down a genetic defect -- and so again, start to become a little obsessed with having a "perfect" baby.

Everyone's idea of the perfect baby seems a little different, but clinics here that recruit for egg donors say that most clients are looking for tall, slender women, who have never had a health problem, and have a college degree with good grades and a high IQ.

Harking back to Z's original question.

I already have.

The local branch of the BPS recruited students from my University as donors. The inducement to become a donor was purely financial - £10 a go, which at the time would buy 7 or 8 pints at the Student Union bar.

As to what I would do if I were traced (assuming I have 'children') is to say that I'm sorry I'm nothing to do with you. The transaction was financial and I've long since drunk it.

Mickey I think things here work a little differently, for one thing they don't treat people who are paying large sums of money. NHS clinics do have very strict rules over who can recieve treatment. Remember that they cannot treat anyone, and don't recieve more money for treating more people.

They also have ethics comittees to discuss any cases where there is any doubt over whether a couple is suitable for parenthood, or when any other ethical issues are raised - for instance if it is a single woman -or if one of the paitents had a disease that might reduce their life expectency.

There is a shortage of egg donors, and I don't think that the couples are in any position to pick and choose who they recieve eggs from they have already been on a waiting list for a long time and would be genuinely grateful for the donation.

I would be very very reluctant to donate to a private clinic. Putting aside my strong politcal prinicples they don't have an ethics comittee, and you couldn't be sure that they are actually providing optimal care, or you as a donor or just doing it the cheapest possible way.

I've just looked up the requirements in the UK,

"All egg donors in the United Kingdom are altruistic volunteers (no incentive either financial gains or otherwise for the donor in giving her egg). In some states in the USA, egg donors are paid.
Egg donors may or may not be a known to the recipient couples.
Egg donors should be healthy women, between the age of 18 and 35 years of age (between 21 and 34 in the USA).
Preferably, they should have had healthy children of their own.
No history of mental disorders.
There should be no family history of genetic or inheritable diseases.
Some clinics may require the potential egg donor to undergo counselling to assess their suitability to become a donor, and to ensure as far as possible that the donor is psychologically stable in order to donate her eggs. "


Well that's the criterea I believe.

As I have said your GP if he or she has worked in the area for some time will have refered patients to several local clinics, so will know which is likely to be the most reputatable.

Here in the US, egg donation is *only* to what are in effect, private clinics. Even clinics at state universities are in effect private clinics where fertility treatments are involved, as the vast majority of costs are not covered by insurance. Pretty much anyone in the US can afford the costs associated with donated sperm, but using a donated egg is generally only for those who can come up with at least $20,000 to cover the various costs.

But, it would be highly inaccurate to claim that these private clinics aren't repsonsible to anyone in the ethics area -- not only do they have their own, internal processes to deal with ethical issues (albeit in part due to financial motivation), but they are also responsible to the ethics boards of state licensing boards and professional organizations.

My main problem with egg donation in the US is that the financial incentive is large enough, that the donor pool (more often than not young women in medical or graduate school, desperate for money) doesn't pay as much attention as they would otherwise to the not inconsiderable risks involved (to a degree, I have the same problem with pharmaceutical companies that target students with incredibly large incentives for being test subjects). Of the women I know who have donated eggs, I'd say at least half regret their decision. The ones who were happiest with their decision were women who were donating eggs to someone they knew -- a relative or friend.

"and you couldn't be sure that they are actually providing optimal care, or you as a donor or just doing it the cheapest possible way."

Personally, I don't think this problem is at all limited to private clinics. I think you may be exaggerating here what you see as the benefits of the NHS system versus private clinics. After all, one of the reasons people go to private clinics is to receive care they view as being *more* optimal than they can receive from the NHS. You may disagree with their motives all you like, but continuing to insist that they provide unethical or substandard care without any evidence to back up your statements is rather bothersome.

That's true, I suspect my polictical motives are slighlty coming across here.

I would never trust a doctor who was employed by the private sector with my health. I would also not trust a doctor who had a private practice as well as his/her NHS practice.

But my point remains that NHS are more strictly regulated than private clinics here.

Lesbian couples certainly have as much right as anyone else to have children but I doubt anyone actually has a right to a child.

I'd agree with that.

Re selection of donated sperm, I'm sure I've heard that recipients are matched as far as possible with a donor of appearance & background so that the resulting offspring may have some resemblance to both parents.