Ethical Questions on Egg Donation

COLUMN By ANA LITA, Ph.D.

For HumanistNetworkNews.org

The standards for donating human eggs for stem-cell research are not yet clear, and ethical uestions continue to complicate the issue.

The process of donating eggs demands that a woman receive drugs and undergo minor surgery. In the case of stem-cell research, the risks of these proceedures are not outweighed by an immediate benefit to a donor and recipient, as they are in kidney and liver donations and egg donations to a fertility clinic.

Women who donate their eggs in the name of research are being put at risk when the chances of success for cloning human embryonic stem cells are uncertain. This poses the question: when the benefit is unclear how much risk should a woman be allowed to take in the name of research?

According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, U.S. fertility clinics attempt about 13,000 in-vitro fertilization procedures every year to help women become pregnant. The donated eggs are obtained by giving a woman drugs to stimulate her ovaries, causing her eggs to mature and be released. The eggs are extracted with a needle that is passed through the vaginal wall in a procedure done under general anesthesia.

Egg donors are at risk for a condition called ovarian hyperstimulaton syndrome, which can be life-threatening. Severe cases occur in about one percent of women who have their ovaries stimulated, but the risk is reduced in women who donate their eggs for research. Women who are receiving ovarian stimulation drugs in a research setting are watched closely, and if their estrogen levels climb too high, the cycle is stopped.

While women who are taking the drugs in order to have children will generally accept this risk, doctors will withhold the drug from women who are donating their eggs for science if they seem to be in danger for ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. Without the drug the risk of the syndrome sharply decreases.

The possibility of cloning humans without putting women at any risk further complicates this issue. During fertility treatments, doctors usually discard the immature eggs that they gather among the mature ones. However, it is possible that the immature eggs could mature in a laboratory dish and then be used for cloning.

Another possibility is to use eggs from rabbits. These resulting stem cells could not be used as a therapy, but they could be valuable for research.

Where do we draw the line, if any, in using animal and human eggs for stem-cell research and cloning?

Ana Lita, Ph.D., is director of the IHEU-Appignani Center for Bioethics, an affiliate of the International Humanist and Ethical Union.