Levine, D, A. (2010). Self-regulation, compensation, and the ethical recruitment of oocyte donors. Hastings Center Report
Summery
The document gives the history of oocyte donation tracing its first success to Australia. This was a period when people asked friends and relatives for oocyte donation in circumstances when intended mothers failed to produce fertile eggs. The spread of oocyte donation to the United States brought a new turn to the practice following its introduction of anonymous donation of oocytes. The introduction of anonymity in donation presented an increase in this type of reproduction, a trend that keeps rising yearly. Women who agree to donate their oocytes receive compensation apparently believed as expenses offset and not for the purchase of the oocytes. It may be a step towards the advancement of technology and biology, but there are ethical questions regarding the practice. This is for some reasons unimaginable because as the reports regarding clinical successes of oocyte donation, no reports exist regarding compensation of the women donors. On the other hand, there are very relaxed laws in the US regulating the oocyte donation practice. This is because of the availability of self-regulation as prescribed by the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology and the Society for Reproductive Medicine.
Ethical stance: compensation of oocyte donors is unethical
Following reports that donor organizations and couples have preferences for oocyte donors and use high compensation appeals distort ethical standards of the practice. Oocyte donation is in itself questionable and compensation for donating is just off the ethical practices of the act. That makes it even more gruesome that those looking for oocyte donors go as far as advertising and enticing donors with huge compensations. There are religious concerns with noncoital conceptions and the genetic effects of the confusion of maternal and gestational motherhood (Krawiec, 2009). I is very unethical to compensate for oocyte donations.
There can be other means of helping the situation of infertility without the full dependency, which this trend of oocyte donation seems to be chasing. Other than that, there is need for respecting human life without offering prejudices on basis of some qualities deemed better or preferable than others offer like ethnic background, eye color, height and skin complexion among other. This, further, calls for regulation on advertisements looking for oocyte donors through huge compensatory offers. This is because given that the targeted areas are like universities, there if high potentiality of donor agencies focusing on the possibility of financial difficulties of the students in school. Such an instance leaves the natural need for the oocyte and turns into exploitation of the innocent students who forget about any implications of oocyte donations for the enticement of money. The freedom for choosing here is clearly abused and requires regulatory amendments for maintenance of ethical practice.
Quote 1
“Compensation of oocyte donors raises questions about the commodification of human gametes….such commodification contributes to a diminished sense of human personhood and ought to be subject to government regulation” ( Levine, 2010, pg 27, Para 3).
Quote 2
“To avoid putting a price on human gametes or selectively valuing particular human traits, compensation should not vary according to the planned use of oocytes (for example, research or clinical care), the number of quality of oocytes retrieved, the outcome of prior donation cycles or the donors ethnic or other personal characteristics” (Levine, 2010, pg 28, Para 1).
Question 1
How can there be elimination or nominal maintenance of ethical compensation of the oocyte donors without jeopardizing humanification?
Question 2
Why should the government put regulatory rules governing the donation of oocytes with clear prescriptions of acceptable limits of compensation and accountability responses?
References
Krawiec, K., D. (2009). “Sunny Summaritans and Egomaniacs: Price-Fixing in the Gamete Market,” Law and Contemporary Problems. 72: 59-90.
Levine, D, A. (2010). Self-regulation, compensation, and the ethical recruitment of oocyte donors. Hastings Center Report.
