Egg Donation

It's technically called an egg "donation. " But if you're a young Asian woman, donating your eggs to an infertile couple can fetch enough cash to buy a used car or perhaps a semester at college. The same market forces that drive the price of cotton, copper and other commodities - supply and demand - have allowed Asian women to command about $10,000 to $20,000 for their eggs, also known as gametes or ova. Women of other ethnic groups typically get about $6,000 when they can sell their eggs, but they often can't for lack of demand, according to donation agencies and fertility clinics.

It's technically called an egg "donation. " But if you're a young Asian woman, donating your eggs to an infertile couple can fetch enough cash to buy a used car or perhaps a semester at college. The same market forces that drive the price of cotton, copper and other commodities - supply and demand - have allowed Asian women to command about $10,000 to $20,000 for their eggs, also known as gametes or ova. Women of other ethnic groups typically get about $6,000 when they can sell their eggs, but they often can't for lack of demand, according to donation agencies and fertility clinics.

It wasn't exactly the part-time job Rebecca Weis was looking for last year while scanning the jobs bulletin board at Sacramento City College. Ovum Donors Needed , read the notice from Pacific Fertility Center in San Francisco. "I am applying to medical school, so I'm interested in all this stuff," says Weis, now 23, married and childless. "And I thought it would be nice to help somebody else out."

The tighter belts being worn of late are leaving less room for baby bumps. According to data released in December by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , births for 2009 continued the downward trend begun in 2008, and 2010 data indicate more of the same. Falling birthrates often breed anxiety: Who will do the work; who will pay the Social Security taxes of the future? But in reality, the declining baby rates ? prompted by the recession, many experts say ? actually bode well for women, their families and the nation.

Should a woman be allowed to sell her eggs? The question had never triggered much debate in the private world of fertility medicine, where Ivy League women can earn tens of thousands of dollars per "donation." But it seems everything about stem cell research is political. A spirited disagreement over payment has split feminists, with some calling compensation to research subjects coercive and others contending that banning it is paternalistic.

The tighter belts being worn of late are leaving less room for baby bumps. According to data released in December by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , births for 2009 continued the downward trend begun in 2008, and 2010 data indicate more of the same. Falling birthrates often breed anxiety: Who will do the work; who will pay the Social Security taxes of the future? But in reality, the declining baby rates ? prompted by the recession, many experts say ? actually bode well for women, their families and the nation.

In Britain, officials have sought to avoid the dilemmas associated with egg donation by limiting the payment to egg donors to about $24--the same paid to sperm donors. By capping payment, British authorities hope to involve only altruistic donors who feel deeply committed to helping an infertile couple. But the result of this policy has been an enormous waiting list for women seeking egg donation.

On July 11, Maria del Camen Bousada de Lara, a Spanish woman who 2 1/2 years ago briefly became the "world's oldest mom" when she gave birth to twin boys at age 67, died of cancer. A recipient of donor eggs and sperm at a Los Angeles fertility clinic, she had told doctors she was 55, the maximum age for partnerless in-vitro fertilization patients at that clinic.

A sophisticated reproductive technique that has enabled some menopausal women to bear children appears to work as well in women over 40 as in younger women, according to a new report by USC researchers. The study of 100 patients suggests that the technique, which involves the use of eggs from younger women, can in some instances reverse the normal age-related decline in human fertility. The underlying problem may be the age of the egg, not the age of the other reproductive organs.

In vitro fertilization fails to produce a baby for about 75% of the couples who attempt it. Reasons range from poor embryo quality and quantity to implantation problems to bad luck. But oftentimes, doctors simply cannot explain the failure. Now, however, a study of women who use donor eggs when undergoing IVF points to what is possibly the most significant factor related to female infertility: the quality of the eggs. An analysis of 276 patients at USC showed that 87.

On July 11, Maria del Camen Bousada de Lara, a Spanish woman who 2 1/2 years ago briefly became the "world's oldest mom" when she gave birth to twin boys at age 67, died of cancer. A recipient of donor eggs and sperm at a Los Angeles fertility clinic, she had told doctors she was 55, the maximum age for partnerless in-vitro fertilization patients at that clinic.

The particulars of Alexandra Gammelgard's egg donations are a bit of a blur to her. Between the ages 18 and 21, she donated to at least four infertile couples, using two, maybe three, agencies that paid her from $5,000 to $15,000 for each donation. She was trying to pay for her education at UC San Diego and didn't keep track of the details. "The college years of your life go by so fast, and you do so many crazy, random things that it's hard to remember it all," Gammelgard, now 23, says.

The British government has approved a plan to compensate women who donate eggs for stem cell research, an action that scientists hope will improve the limited supply of eggs. Women getting fertility treatments will receive a discount if they donate eggs for research, authorities said Wednesday. Others will receive up to about $490 for each fertilization cycle to cover costs such as travel or lost work time. The eggs would be used to create cloned embryos, with the hope of extracting stem cells.

Chad and David Craig fidgeted in the waiting room like expectant fathers, which is, after all, what they were. Just down the hall, in a sterile surgical suite, a young woman they had met only once had her legs up in stirrups. Dr. Suheil J. Muasher, a fertility specialist, gripped a long silver needle between his right thumb and forefinger and twirled it gently as he guided it through her vaginal wall and into her right ovary. "It's full of follicles," he said approvingly, glancing at an ultrasound monitor to track the needle's path.

CHAD HODGE LIKED #694. She was a 21-year-old college student, 5-feet-5, 135 pounds, with straight brown hair, blue eyes and a narrow nose. She had won 16 awards in high school for academics and music, and scored a 1210 on the SAT. She was outgoing, intelligent, responsible and friendly, or at least she said she was. Chad wanted her to be the mother of his children. But David Craig, Chad's partner of seven years, had his heart set on #685.

WHEN the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court voted to legalize gay marriage in 2003, its opinion rested squarely on the argument that determining the best interests of a child "does not turn on a parent's sexual orientation or marital status." Three years later, the top court in neighboring New York also cited the welfare of children -- but took precisely the opposite stance.

Slipping away from Harvard for a week last June, a PhD candidate named Rachel, a tall strawberry blond with a creamy complexion and blue-green eyes, jetted to San Francisco for an unusual tryst. Awaiting her was a wealthy Bay Area couple, desperate for a baby, willing to pay Rachel thousands of dollars to help them realize their dream.

These days, most of Dr. Mark V. Sauer's patients are past their reproductive primes. In the past five years, about 200 women in their 40s and 50s have attempted to get pregnant via donor eggs at the USC-IVF Program. About 75% of those midlife patients are trying for their first child, Sauer says. He is straightforward about their chances. Infertile older women get pregnant at the same rates as infertile younger women.

Should a woman be allowed to sell her eggs? The question had never triggered much debate in the private world of fertility medicine, where Ivy League women can earn tens of thousands of dollars per "donation." But it seems everything about stem cell research is political. A spirited disagreement over payment has split feminists, with some calling compensation to research subjects coercive and others contending that banning it is paternalistic.