Should British women be better compensated for donating their eggs?

March 17, 2010 by Shawn Douglas
Filed under: News

A debate has been sparked in Britain about whether its women should be better compensated for donating eggs to infertile couples.

Tonight the Bridge Center, one of London’s more notable fertility clinics, is offering one woman the chance to select eggs from a U.S. donor. The woman to receive this gift will be selected randomly by “raffle”.

A special arrangement between the Bridge Center in London and The Genetics and IVF Institute based out of Fairfax, Virginia in the U.S. allows the London clinic to bypass strict British fertility laws.

While The Genetics and IVF Institute compensates its U.S. donors up to 6,000 U.S. dollars, the donation of the eggs by the Bridge Institute without cost to a British recipient does not violate British law.

Currently in Britain, women can only be compensated up to 250 pounds for donating their eggs, often barely covering the cost of the fare to the clinic. Yet in the U.S., compensation can go up to 6,600 pounds.

The announcement of the Bridge Center’s “raffle” has sparked a debate in the country about whether its women should receive more for their egg donations. A shortage of egg donors, long wait times, and no anonymity has fueled the debate further.

Dr. Francoise Shenfield, a fertility and medical ethics expert at University College London, sees such an event as nothing more than a publicity stunt.

“There’s something shocking in the association of a raffle and giving away a human product,” he told the Associated Press.

“In Europe, we have the general idea that altruism is a good thing, and we don’t want to turn human body parts into a commodity.”

However, some experts believe that if more compensation was given to British donors, availability of eggs would be greater, and fewer women would feel compelled to cross borders to pay for them.

Allan Pacey, a fertility expert at the University of Sheffield, said that “250 pounds barely scratches the surface” of compensating women for travel and time spent preparing their bodies to donate.

The AP reports that in Spain, women can receive up to 800 pounds for their donation, bringing in more donors and increasing the supply of available eggs. Such measures have drawn women from other parts of Europe to travel there to solve their infertility issues.

The Sun published an interview with Susan Pires, 30, from East London today. Pires said she “had no choice but to go to Spain” to receive donor eggs.

“I faced a five-year waiting list to get donated eggs after discovering I was infertile,” Pires told The Sun. “While it was heartbreaking, I could understand why donors are few and far between. I’ve been through IVF and I know how traumatic it can be.”

“How can we expect women to go through such a process for someone else’s gain without financial compensation?”