# Fertility Donor Pay Debate



## bankie (Dec 27, 2007)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8169890.stm


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## watn1 (Mar 14, 2008)

I have just caught this on the news.. & have been a part of a eggshare (me donor) I see the pro's and con's.

I think what they are suggesting of a payment of £3000 is a little rediculas as people will just be doing it for the £££'s which there is nothing wrong with if you can shut yourself off completely from the fact of sharing but hopefully ladies will realise there's a bit more to it then 'just giving eggs away' I never imagined in a million years just how 'trying' a cycle of TX would be on my body.

I do think though that some more payment in the way of 'actual' expenses should be honoured I was quite ill and had to have 2 weeks off work and £250 would not of even covered 1 of my weeks off and being self employed there was no sick pay etc. I would love to do a cycle of just donating egg's but financially I couldn't support it another time around with the risk of being ill again... So, From this point of view I am totally all for it!


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## Skybreeze (Apr 25, 2007)

I too can see the pro's and con's.... Yes I do think that more women would think about donating, and maybe a payment is a good thing to do... But I think about the situation in America (and maybe else where?) where girls/ladies offer there egg for huge amounts of money... What if you can afford to pay a donor?? 

£3000+ is a huge amount for most people to pay on top of DEIVF treatment. ( I assume the money comes from the recipient?) I have donated twice but had I not been 'infertile' and not had a clue about IVF etc, I wouldn't of even thought about donating my eggs!? Honestly I hadn't really heard of DEIVF before FF. 
The reason I donate was because I wanted to help another couple. Having known what ttc was like for so long. I wouldn't want anything from my recipient(s), as I egg shared my recipient paid for my cycle anyway so that was payment enough. 

Its a hard one but I dont really think its the answer. Maybe in the short term... But donating eggs isn't easy, and then you have the issue of being anonymous. 

Its a hard one!


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## kat79 (Feb 9, 2009)

A tricky one..

There is no doubt that a payment of more than £250 is needed - as Watn said it wouldn't cover a week off sick for many, and then with petrol costs and special diets etc to promote good eggs etc it isn't enough to cover the expenses. Have to say that that alone ruled out donating for me in a purely altruistic way (ie not an egg-share arrangement).

BUT

the situation in America is absurd over payments. And here, with the new anonymity laws (or rather, the lack of anonymity) the thought of having a child biologically half mine turning up on my doorstep asking why I'd "sold" them to the highest bidder is horrific.  And however untrue, the guilt would still be there I think...

Perhaps a more sensible figure needs to be found - one that clearly is "expenses" only but high enough to realistically cover those expenses?

Very tricky...

Kat


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## Jane D (Apr 16, 2007)

i think £3000 payment is way over the top myself.  it would put DEIVF out of the reach of the recipient if they had to foot the bill entirely themselves.  I think it should be a reimbursement scheme whereby you get compensated for loss of earnings, travel costs, special dietary requirements, accommodation etc and maybe a flat rate payment too. At least **** is acknowledging a shortage of egg donors and are looking at reviewing the situation.  lack of compensation is only half the reason though why folks arent exactly coming through in their thousands.  We all know what the other reason is.


Jane


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## pabboo (Sep 29, 2007)

I personally think the situation of shortages of donors might not be quite so bad if people were not rejected as donors for reasons which the recipients may be quite happy to accept  - I was rejected as an egg donor as my Dad is mildly red/green colour blind. Therefore i have a 25% chance of carrying the gene. 

if I do carry the gene (and we can't check) any males born from my eggs have a 25% chance of being colour blind, and any females have a 25% chance of carrying the gene. So all in all, there is... my maths is terrible so bare with me.... a 1 in 8 chance that an offspring from my eggs may either be colour blind or carry the gene?

I think a lot of recipients would not worry about colour blindness and would have been happy to make the choice themselves as to whether they wanted my eggs knowing this information.  

About 8% of men are colour blind, so this isn't exactly a rare condition, and is certainly not life threatening or limiting. Yet, my very healthy eggs were rejected because of this. 

I know it would not solve the donor problem, but I wonder how many people are turned away for reasons like this?

As for being paid to be a donor, I agree that real (not "reasonable" as I don't see what is currently offered as being likely to cover much) expenses should be covered - like missing work etc. At one point, back in 2004, they were talking about £1000 for an egg donor (and £50 for sperm), which seems more reasonable to me. I'd also expect it to be covered by the clinic as part of what we pay for donor eggs or sperm - I can't see why they'd need to charge more than they already do for donated eggs and sperm.


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## Essex Girl (Apr 3, 2005)

Having had the benefit of DE myself and seen what my sister went through for no benefit of her own, I think it is not unreasonable to compensate donors for the time, inconvenience, discomfort and potential risks that they agree to take on so that others can have the gift of a baby.  

I don't know how it works in other countries, but since there seems to be a plentiful supply of donor eggs in various foreign countries where British women go for treatment, I can only assume that women in those countries are paid for their eggs, and if it is morally acceptable to pay someone in Ukraine or the Czech Republic, say, the same should apply here.  Personally, I do have some reservations about paying women for eggs if the process is not carefully regulated, because of the risk of abuse and exploitation of the women concerned.  

Obviously, paying the donor would add to the cost of treatment, but does DE treatment need to be so much more expensive than straight IVF?  I did feel that our clinic charged us a lot, given that the additional drugs and blood tests were paid for separately in any event, and there isn't that much more work involved than doing IVF with a woman's own eggs.  But we got the result we wanted in the end, so that's water under the bridge now...

EG x


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## maybe-if (Aug 1, 2007)

I donated semi-altruistically to two women. I did it because I had the time and energy back then and because we were due to go through IVF for ourselves and I wanted a taster of what it was like (and to see if I had problems wth egg production before it mattered to us).

My DH managed to negotiate with our clinic that we would get money off our own IVF cycle as I was donating altruistically. Sorta like a drawn out egg share arrangement. I couldn't do proper egg sharing as we needed all my eggs from one cycle for myself as the amount of sperm we had was so low, and a one off (sperm extracted via a biopsy and no promise of any more).

Having gone through all that... I would consider donating my eggs again. However I'd like to donate at my old fertility clinic and the travel costs alone could be huge. Never mind taking time away from my two precious babies when they arrive.

So to be honest, money is what's putting me off donating again. I have no problem whatsoever with the change in anonymity laws. If you look into it, it's unlikely that a child is just going to turn up on your doorstep. And you also legally have no moral, legal, financial or emotional rights or obligations to the child, they have their own parents and I feel that very strongly! 

We were facing the possibility of using a sperm donor at one point during our treatment, and any kids we had by a donor would be as much mine as DH's. The thought that a donor would think they might be responsible for them in any way horrifies me. They are a donor. If you donate blood to someone, are you then responsible for that person's life? But that's just my take on it, I know other people have differing opinions.

For info, both women got pregnant but one miscarried.    The other had a healthy baby and I am so pleased for them, whoever they are. It felt weird because I wasn't pregnant at the time, but I don't feel like the child is remotely mine, more some sort of distant cousin, if that makes sense? I do keep wondering if I should also offer to donate again for a sibling for them (although I think they have frosties left from their cycle).

Sorry, I'm deviating from the thread a bit, blame my frazzled brain!


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## Lorna (Apr 8, 2004)

I am as angry as H***, that posters here, think that in the USA, people donate for money.  I went to the States, and went through an agency to find my donor.  I must have read about a 100 profiles.  I pretty quickly got an idea, of who thought it was easy money and who was donating because they wanted to help someone.  

And the people whose only reason to sign up, is for the money, almost never donate.  That’s is right, people who think it is an easy way to make money, DO NOT donate.  It is only the people who genuinely want to help others who donate eggs.  

When a trashy newspaper / the BBC interview an egg donor, they ask loaded questions about money.  But the agency we used, warned us about using someone who mentioned money.  They wouldn’t do it.  Have you ever seen a program, about potential donors who went through the screening process, who learnt what IVF is really about and then ran away.  I mean literally disappeared.  No! Neither have I.  It would take to much hard work for the lazy journalists, to get off their backsides, and find these people.  So they go after the easy to find people, the ones who did donate, and ask them if the money was the reason why they donated.  For those who work with egg donors, day in and day out, they know the money attracts more people who think they would like to donate.  It cannot, and will never be the reason why people donate.

In the UK, there are no national agencies dealing with donors, who can tell us what it is like to work with donors who receive reasonable compensation. And the NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome means the UK (aka the HFEA) is unwilling to learn from the USA.  We would have a much better system of creating families, if we did, but that is another story.  

The agency that found a donor for us, had trouble all the time with donors running away, and they were the ones who thought it was easy money.  Donors who genuinely wanted to help others, were the only ones worth considering.  And why should they do it for nothing?  Why should the 28 year old, mum of 3, who was head of a NICU (Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit), and who did volunteer work, receive nothing?  She was giving up her free time, to help us. Egg donation is a lengthy, time consuming, painful, emotional, risky (life threatening) thing to do.  IMO, 3000 pounds is too little money for someone doing this.  And the women who sent their profiles to the agency, thinking they could make a fast buck, agree.  A million pounds, wouldn't get those, who think it is easy money to donate.

Egg donation is about fulfilling a couple's dreams.  And those who donate realise this.

And what did the wonderful women, who did donate their eggs, do with the money.  They looked after their family. They didn’t spend it on themselves on frivolous things.  Families go through egg donation with the women, and  egg donors feel that their family should receive some benefit.  It might be a holiday, but it also might be some extra equipment so their child can be helped to develop a hobby into a career, putting money aside for college, and so on.

So please do not let the appalling attitude of the press in the UK, make you think, women donate eggs for money. They don’t.  However much is on the table.

I do hate the way the HFEA uses the word payment.  The self sacrificing members of the HFEA who generously give up their time, to deal with the thorny issue of infertility, receive COMPENSATION and unlimited expenses for the meetings they attend.  Shouldn't a donor, who IMO, is far more self sacrificing, receive the same kind of compensation as an HFEA member?  Compensation, not payment.

Moving on......

I do appreciate that giving donors reasonable compensation makes things initially more expensive, but IMO, recipients should have better results, at a lower cost, long term.

At the moment, when someone does egg sharing or straight donation, their eggs are divided up among one or more recipients.  A recipient may receive 4 or 5 eggs depending on how many eggs the donor produces.  They do *not* receive all the eggs.  

With 4 eggs, if one doesn’t fertilise, and one doesn’t develop, you are left with two eggs to transfer.  Enough? Well if one is a badly fragmented one, it is really only one embryo, and we know Single Embryo transfer, has a much lower chance of producing a live birth than dual embryo.  A recipient is paying lots of money, for a poor chance of having a child.  So, I suspect, that in the UK, many recipients, I agree not all, must pay for more than one donation cycle to have a child.  And for the second child, recipients will have to pay for yet more donation cycles.  Yes, I understand, that some will only have to pay for one donation cycle, but many will pay for two or more cycles.  It is a lot of money.

In the USA, I got all twelve eggs from my donor, who was in her 30's. All fertilised, and I ended with 8 blastocycts.  3 were transferred. The rest were frozen.  If we had wanted more children, we could have done a frozen embryo transfer.  In the UK a couple, who need to have a second child, probably can't use frozen embryos, because they won't have any.  They have to pay for a complete donation cycle.

So fair compensation, it is not payment, may make donation cheaper for those who want to create a complete family.  Couples will pay for one donation cycle, plus one or more frozen embryo transfers.  Currently, I suspect people are paying for several donation cycles.

Lorna

PS I think the 3000 pounds mentioned is a negotiating tactic to get a 1000 pound compensation fee.

PPS Have you any idea of just how many millions, the HFEA earns from patients who have treatment in the UK.  I mean millions of pounds, lots of millions.  And how much money the HFEA could potentially lose to people going abroad for treatment.  I seriously doubt, that the HFEA, is suggesting this change for our benefit.  I think the HFEA realises they are losing out on the fresh / frozen transfer fee and it is hitting their income stream.  IMO, the HFEA doesn’t want to lose any money, so they are willing to change things.  Money talks.


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