Donating eggs the American way

New guidelines from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), reported on in this week's BioNews, recommend that American egg donors should be paid no more than $5000 for their donation.

British commentators will no doubt feel uncomfortable about this level of payment. In the UK, egg donors are only allowed to be reimbursed for direct expenses incurred as a result of coming to donate eggs (such as travel costs), which is reflected in a flat fee of £15. In the US, meanwhile, the notion of compensation is accepted. And so women can be given financial compensation for undergoing the procedures required for egg donation (drug regimens, egg collections etc.).

The ASRM report makes an interesting point about this kind of compensation. It estimates that egg donors spend roughly 56 hours in a medical setting (in interviews, counselling and medical procedures), whereas sperm donors only need about an hour to make their donation. Egg donors, therefore, might reasonably expect 56 times more compensation than sperm donors.

If sperm donors in the UK are given £15 per donation, the ASRM calculation would mean that egg donors receive about £840. But this kind of compensation is considered a no-go area, mainly because it is thought large sums of money might induce women who would not otherwise consider donation to give their eggs away. But is this necessarily true? And would it be a bad thing if it were?

I know a number of women who would like to donate their eggs to other women to help them conceive. But, for a whole host of reasons, they haven't got around to doing anything about it. The promise of a few hundred pounds would probably make them act more decisively. But if they were paid, would these women be motivated to donate their eggs for the wrong reasons? I don't think they would.

Maybe British society just isn't ready for egg donors to be paid £800 for donating. But shouldn't we at least be talking about it? If men can expect £15 per hour for donating, why can't women?