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Background As the use of donor eggs for in vitro treatment has increased, both medically affiliated and private donor egg agencies have turned to online advertisements to recruit donors. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine provides recommendations encouraging ethical recruitment of donors, however there is no formal regulation for the informed consent process for egg donor recruitment and compensation. Underrepresentation of risks and targeted financial incentives may pose a risk to the informed consent process. Methods Data from online advertisements for egg donors active between January 1 - August 31, 2020, were collected to analyze content related to risks, Covid-19 precautions, donor payment, and desired donor characteristics. Advertisements for egg donors on Google, Craigslist, and social media were analyzed. Primary outcomes included the mention of the risks of egg donation, including the risk of Covid-19 exposure, in donor egg advertisements. Secondary outcomes included language targeting specific donor characteristics and financial compensation. Results 103 advertisements were included. 35.9% (37/103) of advertisements mentioned some risk of the egg donation process, and 18.5% (19/103) mentioned risks or precautions related to Covid-19 exposure. Of advertisements for private donor egg agencies, 40.7% (24/59) mentioned any risk, compared to 29.6% (13/44) of medically affiliated egg donation programs; the difference was not statistically significant (p-value = 0.24). Agencies targeting students and donors of a specific race were more likely to offer payments over $10,000 for an egg donation cycle. Among advertisements offering over $20,000 for donor compensation, 72.7% (8/11) recruited women under the age of 21. Conclusion Egg donor recruitment advertisements, for both medically affiliated programs and private agencies, were unlikely to mention risks including the risk of exposure to Covid-19. Non-medically affiliated private donor egg agencies were more likely to violate multiple American Society for Reproductive Medicine ethics guidelines, including offering higher than average compensation, and recruiting donors from young and vulnerable populations.

Oocyte donation has been used to treat human infertility for nearly 30 years, and remains particularly popular in helping women of advanced reproductive age, yet it also poses ethical concerns. Due to increasing demand and undersupply of available oocyte (or egg) donors, a niche business has developed in which “agencies” assist physician practices in advertising, recruiting, screening and even “matching” donors to recipients in need of such services. The advent of the Internet has increased the number and visibility of these services, creating a market in which programs bid for women perceived as having desired traits and superior pedigrees. A few questionable ethical aspects of these agencies have been examined by ourselves and others, including patterns of monetary compensation that directly conflict with the American Society for Reproductive Medicine's (ASRM) ethical guidelines, but many questions remain unexamined.For-profit agencies that recruit and often match egg donors with intended parents exist alongside licensed, professional fertility clinics that actually perform the medical procedures.

PurposeRegulation of payment to gamete donors varies substantially across countries. The development of an ethically sustainable governance system of payments in gamete donation demands that the preferences of different stakeholders be heard. This study intends to contribute to improving the understanding of payment to gamete donors by analysing the views of donors and recipients about the preferred form of payment and its associations with their sociodemographic characteristics.MethodsThis cross-sectional study included 70 donors and 172 recipients recruited at the Portuguese Public Bank of Gametes (July 2017–June 2018). Participants completed a self-reported questionnaire. Views about the preferred form of payment were collected through a multiple-choice question and an open-ended item. Associations were quantified through χ2 tests; content analysis was conducted with the open-ended answers.ResultsBoth donors (48.6%) and recipients (40.7%) considered that reimbursement is the preferred form of payment to ensure solidarity-based motivations to donate. This option was followed by compensation for non-financial losses (41.4% of donors; 33.7% of recipients) based on gender equity. Preference for a fixed reward (22.7% of recipients; 8.6% of donors) was less frequent among younger donors and married/living with a partner or employed recipients, being based on the promotion of equality.ConclusionIn the context of the search for cross-border reproductive care and gamete circulation across countries, the findings from this study claim for the need to create solutions for payment to gamete donors that take into account gender equity and are simultaneously sensitive to donor’s actual expenses and further health complications.

The authors discuss the ethical and legal dimensions of the production and sale of human embryos to infertile couples. They conclude that although aspects of this practice are troublesome, it is not fundamentally different from the sale of unfertilized eggs and sperm. Embryo donation (also known as embryo adoption) is the compassionate gifting of residual cryopreserved embryos by consenting parents to infertile recipients. At present, only a limited number of such transactions occur. In 2010, the last year for which U.S. data were available, fewer than 1000 embryo donations were recorded. These acts of giving, unencumbered by federal law, are being guided by a limited number of state laws. Moreover, the practice is sanctioned by professional societies, such as the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, subject to the provision that “the selling of embryos per se is ethically unacceptable.” 1 As such, the . . .

Over the last couple of decades, oocyte donation has become common, important, and sometimes lucrative. Women who donate eggs are often offered fees, though ostensibly only to offset their expenses and limited to no more than $10,000, following recommendations adopted by the fertility industry. Is the industry adhering to its recommendations? A study of advertisements published in college newspapers raises questions.

Women who donate their eggs for stem-cell research should be compensated in the same way as other healthy research volunteers, argues Insoo Hyun. Stem cell supply If it is ethically and legally permissible for women to offer their oocytes for stem-cell research, and if it is acceptable to compensate healthy volunteers for their time and inconvenience when undergoing comparable procedures for research, why do guidelines on stem-cell provision in North America and Europe limit remuneration to women's direct expenses? Insoo Hyun, currently working on the ISSCR International Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Guidelines Task Force, argues that women should be fully compensated if they provide oocytes for basic research.

Among other things, the debacle in South Korea has focused renewed attention on oocyte donation. Dr. Robert Steinbrook describes the process of oocyte retrieval and controversies surrounding egg donation. In November 2005, Woo Suk Hwang, the leader of a South Korean team conducting stem-cell research, touched off an international uproar when he admitted that he had used oocytes from junior scientists in his laboratory as well as from paid donors and that he had lied about the circumstances under which the oocytes had been obtained. Subsequent questions about fraud in the underlying science mushroomed into scandal. As of mid-January, the group's 2005 report about the derivation of patient-specific embryonic stem cells from human blastocysts created by somatic-cell nuclear transfer 1 was being retracted, as was its 2004 report in Science . . .

In the United States, a woman may receive $20,000 for an egg used for reproduction but nothing for the same egg used for stem-cell research. Debora Spar argues that what we need is a fresh debate on egg donation and a new set of policies. Debora Spar and Emily Galpern debate the appropriateness of financial compensation for women who donate oocytes for in vitro fetrilization and stem-cell research. Spar is a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, and Galpern is a project director on reproductive health and human rights at the Center for Genetics and Society, Oakland, California. Anna Behrens is 24 years old. Tall and slim, she is working toward her Ph.D. in art history at an Ivy League school. During her undergraduate years, Anna accumulated $27,000 in credit-card debt. In the fall of 2005, frustrated by her economic straits, Anna answered an advertisement in her university's magazine promising $25,000 to a “tall, athletic woman” willing to “give a gift of life and love.” Anna visited the agent who had placed the ad, underwent medical tests at a fertility clinic, and met the couple that was searching for eggs. Through the agent, they offered her $20,000 plus . . .

In Canada (as elsewhere) there is a growing demand for human eggs for reproductive purposes and currently demand exceeds supply. This is not surprising, as egg production and retrieval is onerous. It requires considerable time, effort, and energy and carries with it significant physical and psychological risks. In very general terms, one cycle of egg production and retrieval involves an estimated total of 56 hours for interviews, counseling, and medical procedures (i.e., screening, hormonal stimulation, and egg retrieval). The screening carries risks of unanticipated findings with severe consequences for insurability (which can be catastrophic). The daily hormone injections can be painful and uncomfortable, causing cramping, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, bloating, mood changes, and irritability.