Egg donation, egg freezing and IVF: Putting them in perspective

When it comes to assisted conception and (in)fertility, we at PET (the Progress Educational Trust) believe in the importance of discussion, debate, awareness and understanding. Official inquiries and consultations are a helpful context in which to pursue these things, offering valuable opportunities to share facts and exchange ideas.

At one level, then, PET welcomes the news that the Women and Equalities Committee of the House of Commons has launched an inquiry into egg donation and egg freezing (see BioNews 1315a). The Committee is seeking written responses from organisations and also from individuals, including people who have personal experience of egg freezing and/or egg donation.

PET encourages everyone in its orbit, including all interested readers of BioNews, to respond to the inquiry. At the same time, PET has some reservations about the pretext for the inquiry and the way it has been framed.

To begin with, it is unclear what (if anything) has prompted the inquiry. When I was interviewed about the inquiry on Sky News last week, and presenter Kamali Melbourne began the interview by asking me 'What needs to change?', my honest response was 'I'm not sure that anything needs to change'.

As indicated by Melbourne's line of questioning, the fact that such an inquiry has been launched could be taken to mean that there is a major problem with egg donation or egg freezing, or that some recent disaster has occurred. That is certainly not the case in the UK. Nor is it the case that egg donation and egg freezing are especially new – on the contrary, they are very much 20th century innovations.

The first babies born who were conceived from the fertilisation of previously frozen eggs were twins born in Australia in 1986, since when the technology has improved drastically with the advent of vitrification in the 1990s. Meanwhile, the first baby born following egg donation was born – again, in Australia – even earlier, in 1983 (see BioNews 1236, 1238 and 1273). In other words, these particular forms of assisted conception have been in use for so long, that the oldest people born from them are now approaching middle age.

Then there is the fact that the new inquiry brings together several distinct topics, each of which is already quite complex in itself. For example, the Committee's call for evidence makes no distinction between egg freezing for medical reasons and egg freezing for non-medical reasons (so-called 'social' egg freezing).

To some extent, the absence of the distinction is no bad thing. PET campaigned for many years for both forms of egg freezing to be governed by the same rules, particularly when it comes to the length of time for which frozen eggs can lawfully be stored, and we were pleased when our campaign succeeded with the passing of the Health and Care Act 2022 (see BioNews 1111a, 1111b, 1112, 1115 and 1118). However, the difference between reasons for egg freezing does remain of some significance, and should not be completely disregarded.

Perhaps this aspect was overlooked because the new inquiry is so broad, concerning not just egg freezing but also egg donation, a topic that raises different issues again. And then, as if that weren't enough, the press release announcing the inquiry broadens the remit even further to 'egg and embryo donation and freezing' (emphasis mine).

Given this enormous breadth, it is perhaps worth asking why the scope of the inquiry was not broadened further still, to encompass all of IVF. After all, the Committee's chair Sarah Owen MP refers in the press release to 'the health impacts of donating or freezing eggs and embryos'. The medical consequences and risks of ovarian stimulation are actually the same for any woman whose eggs are collected for use in IVF, whether her contribution is limited to being an egg donor or whether she goes on to carry a pregnancy.

Consider the fact that at least 12 million babies conceived via IVF are estimated to have been born worldwide, and that one in every 32 children born in the UK was conceived via IVF (see BioNews 1295). If ovarian stimulation did pose a major risk to women's health, one would hardly expect the consequences to be restricted to those women who donate or freeze their eggs or embryos.

Happily, the latest data from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) shows that egg donors in the UK are not at elevated risk. 67 cases of severe and critical ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome were reported by UK fertility clinics in 2024/2025, and not one of these cases concerned an egg donor (see BioNews 1315b).

These, then, are some of our reservations about the new inquiry. Nonetheless, we are grateful for any opportunity to contribute to public and policy discussion of these topics. We are equally grateful for any opportunity to discuss both the merits and the shortcomings of the UK's fertility and embryo law, as is hopefully evident from our lengthy response to an HFEA consultation asking whether and how this law should be reformed.