Dr Marilyn Crawshaw & Nina Barnsley | Progress | December 19, 2022
While research and discussions around surrogacy increasingly address relationships between surrogates and intended parents, they often fail to include egg donors, leading to marginalization of donors and lack of full knowledge of genetic origins for donor conceived people.
Hannah Devlin | The Guardian | May 20, 2022
Due to the rapid rise of consumer genetic testing, the UK’s HFEA is considering removing the anonymity period for sperm and egg donors. This would allow contact between donors, donor-conceived people, and their genetic parents, but first the change requires careful consideration by all parties.
Aastha Atray Banan | Mid-Day | February 6, 2022
India recently passed new Surrogacy and ART Acts, banning commercial surrogacy and germline cell sales, respectively. In this interview, author Pinki Virani acknowledges that the acts will promote a more regulated, less money-oriented fertility industry by eliminating the sale-purchase aspect of sperm and eggs and putting power in the hands of surrogates. On the other hand, Virani believes that there are still risks with IVF and third-party reproduction due to the complexity of sourcing sex cells, fertilization, implantation, and birth. In particular, she urges patients to undergo thorough screening processes to reduce the risk of genetic siblings unknowingly becoming a couple.
Ellie Houghtaling | The Guardian | November 7, 2021
In this narrative, Columbia University School of Journalism student Ellie Houghtaling describes egg donation as both a business transaction with the clinic and a way to help prospective parents achieve their dreams. Houghtaling, surprised by the screening process focusing on egg donors’ physical features and education level, notes the eugenic underpinnings of donor selection. Near the end of the process, she comments that she felt disrespected due to the disorganized surgery schedule and lack of health resources. Many young women are attracted to the $3,000-$10,000 checks offered by egg donation clinics to sustain the high cost of living or tuition in big American cities, but there is an extreme gap in data and long-term research on health implications for donors. To protect women who undergo egg donation, an egg donor registry could be helpful to track long-term health implications.
Alison Motluk | HeyReprotech Newsletter | September 1, 2020
This newsletter piece spotlights Surrogacy360’s own “What egg donors want intended parents to know” video series. It provides a synopsis of key points from the videos that intended parents should know or do differently. The writer notes, “Egg donors are too often the silent, hidden partners in modern reproductive care.” She recalls a striking moment when accompanying a donor to her surgical egg retrieval: they entered through the front door of the clinic but had to leave through the back.
By Alison Motluck | Undark | February 24, 2020
From charging “recovery fees” to forging legal documents to harassment, some fertility clinics have gone to extreme measures to coerce women into egg provision even after they decide against it. This article highlights the stories of four women who experienced serious personal consequences after severing their relationships with fertility clinics.
These three articles in The Conversation tackle different angles on the debates surrounding compensation and health care for surrogates and egg providers in Canada.
Paying Surrogates, Sperm and Egg Donors Goes Against Canadian Values by Françoise Baylis and Alana Cattapan
Egg Donors and Surrogates Need High-Quality Care by Françoise Baylis and Alana Cattapan
When Women Are Surrogate Mothers: Is That Work? by Alana Cattapan and Angela Cameron
AUA Newsroom | November 12, 2019
In her talk at the American University of Armenia Turpanjian School of Public Health, Judy Norsigian, founding member of Our Bodies, Ourselves, spoke about the rapid expansion of global commercial surrogacy; the lack of consideration for the health and well-being of gestational mothers and children born of surrogacy; the importance of advancing best practices and human rights in both surrogacy and egg retrieval; and the need to be cautious about human genome modification.
By Alison Motluk | Hey Reprotech! | August 27, 2019
This blog post summarizes the origin story of the support network We Are Egg Donors, and explains why one of the founding members recently resigned from her leadership role.
By Jen Willows | BioNews | August 19, 2019
This article summarizes the efforts of the Free Democrats Party to convince the German Bundestag parliament to liberalize the country’s surrogacy and egg donation laws and to grant single parents and LGBT families access to fertility treatment.