Egg "Donation"

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Egg "Donation"

autumnrain

Mar 26 2025, 4:23 PM

I was wondering if there has been much thought among radfems about the topic of egg "donation."

Back when I worked as a research assistant at my university these facilities would call me frequently trying to get me to sign up. I didn't honestly really look into it at the time because it felt icky to me and the compensation seemed coercive, like $5k per cycle if you were a desired appearance (aka white or Jewish with blue eyes.) They were extremely persistent and would even call my parents at their home phone number. I've heard they're even worse with grad students.

Since then, I listened to The Extraction podcast and god do I feel like I dodged a bullet. The podcast covers women doing IVF and even for them it's pretty invasive and traumatizing. Like surrogacy is definitely worse, but this industry is just as icky to me.

autumnrain

Mar 26 2025, 4:23 PM #1

komorebi
“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” – Audre Lorde

316

Mar 26 2025, 4:47 PM

I went through a few rounds of egg stuff for IVF due to infertility (will be using my own eggs and own body only; we will of course not be using a surrogate nor any donor material). The process is horrible. I guess every woman is different, but for me it was painful, miserable, and took an extreme toll on my body. I gained 10~15 pounds of water weight in a single week and was so swollen I couldn't wear pants comfortably. Some of the injections were agonizingly painful, and also the rapid hormone changes gave me drastic mood swings. 💀 0/10 would not recommend. Trying to turn this process into yet another "business" where profit is generated by making women's bodies fodder for the meat grinder is disgusting and coercive. I'm so glad that you dodged that bullet, and for anyone else reading, don't put yourself through this hell unless you really want it for yourself. It isn't worth it otherwise.

komorebi

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” – Audre Lorde

Mar 26 2025, 4:47 PM #2

noray

Mar 26 2025, 6:27 PM

There is definitely a eugenicist element to egg donation schemes.

The requirements usually involved:
- Being white (donor recipients of colour were rare) - https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1055091
- Requirement of stating your appearance, for example, people with blonde hair and blue eyes are often preferred as donors.
- Having physical or mental illness or history of such in your family (families receiving the eggs would state this as a preference, so if you have depression, diabetes or schizophrenia this would often disqualify you) - there are even some racial elements of certain diseases donor families did not want from people of color, as a justification https://surrogate.com/about-surrogacy/egg-and-sperm-donation/choosing-egg-donor-ethnicity-heritage/
- The designer baby market and the mental health outcomes of designer babies via IVF/donor eggs - https://bioethics.com/archives/95024

Very suspicious business.

Not to mention, fertility fraud and the issues of having your genetic material at the mercy of other parties:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_fraud

Quote:The first "test tube baby" was facilitated by Robert Edwards in 1978, and he allegedly used eggs without the consent of the women involved.

Quote:In the "Egg Affair" in Israel in 2000, police investigated two doctors who were accused of intentionally creating extra eggs in patients needing fertility procedures, and then without their patients' knowledge harvesting and selling the eggs to other fertility patients.

Quote:In Italy in 2016, famed Italian gynecologist Severino Antinori, known as the "grandmothers' obstetrician" because of his reputation for helping women over 60 to bear children, was arrested on suspicion of stealing eggs by removing them from a patient's ovaries without her consent under the guise of performing a procedure on her to remove an ovarian cyst. Antinori had recently hired a Spanish nurse at his clinic, and then diagnosed her with an ovarian cyst for the sole purpose of harvesting her eggs without her knowledge.

noray

Mar 26 2025, 6:27 PM #3

Quote:The first "test tube baby" was facilitated by Robert Edwards in 1978, and he allegedly used eggs without the consent of the women involved.

Quote:In the "Egg Affair" in Israel in 2000, police investigated two doctors who were accused of intentionally creating extra eggs in patients needing fertility procedures, and then without their patients' knowledge harvesting and selling the eggs to other fertility patients.

Quote:In Italy in 2016, famed Italian gynecologist Severino Antinori, known as the "grandmothers' obstetrician" because of his reputation for helping women over 60 to bear children, was arrested on suspicion of stealing eggs by removing them from a patient's ovaries without her consent under the guise of performing a procedure on her to remove an ovarian cyst. Antinori had recently hired a Spanish nurse at his clinic, and then diagnosed her with an ovarian cyst for the sole purpose of harvesting her eggs without her knowledge.

mochamoose

Mar 26 2025, 7:45 PM

Whenever I think of egg donations, I think of Jennifer Schneider's daughter (Jessica Wing) dying of colon cancer at 31, which is extremely rare. Her daughter had been a healthy, active, vegetarian and was not advised of this risk when she sold her eggs three times. Her mom called for tracking and follow up of egg donors, and 17 years later, no one has.

mochamoose

Mar 26 2025, 7:45 PM #4

VerdantHorizon

Mar 26 2025, 7:59 PM

That surrogacy site is bizarre. Aside from unsettling it is to read human material be written about like products, this ethnicity section in particular is weird. I don't think if you're buying baby material that you need to be sold on the idea that you want your baby to look like you (in the broad sense that people of a given ethnicity might vaguely share features), but this stuff:

Quote:Looking at a Black or African American egg donor profiles can give you insight into their heritage for things that are important to you such as celebrating Juneteenth or Kwanzaa or keeping their culture alive by eating region specific foods such as Kushari from Egypt or Doro Wat from Ethiopia.

Quote:Turkish Egg Donor: It could be fond memories of baklava at home growing up, or getting a döner kebab while out with your family. Finding a Turkish egg donor can ensure you are able to pass some of that tradition down to your child.

Quote:The Chinese New Year is celebrated annually, one of the [url=https://surrogate.com/"https://www.chinahighlights.com/festivals/traditional-festival//"]country’s most important holidays[/url] that’s led to similar celebrations in other Asian countries. Maybe you had family traditions growing up to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Finding a Chinese egg donor that values not only the holiday but other aspects of their heritage is absolutely possible.

is really weird. As if an genetically Chinese baby born to an African-American family would be incapable of learning to enjoy Kwanzaa...? Or I guess that the Chinese baby would automatically like Chinese holidays, even if they're raised in an African-American family that doesn't celebrate them? I assume it's just SEO content stuffing, but so strange.

VerdantHorizon

Mar 26 2025, 7:59 PM #5

Quote:Looking at a Black or African American egg donor profiles can give you insight into their heritage for things that are important to you such as celebrating Juneteenth or Kwanzaa or keeping their culture alive by eating region specific foods such as Kushari from Egypt or Doro Wat from Ethiopia.

Quote:Turkish Egg Donor: It could be fond memories of baklava at home growing up, or getting a döner kebab while out with your family. Finding a Turkish egg donor can ensure you are able to pass some of that tradition down to your child.

Quote:The Chinese New Year is celebrated annually, one of the [url=https://surrogate.com/"https://www.chinahighlights.com/festivals/traditional-festival//"]country’s most important holidays[/url] that’s led to similar celebrations in other Asian countries. Maybe you had family traditions growing up to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Finding a Chinese egg donor that values not only the holiday but other aspects of their heritage is absolutely possible.

OffMyTit

Mar 27 2025, 4:10 AM

(Mar 26 2025, 7:59 PM)VerdantHorizon That surrogacy site is bizarre. Aside from unsettling it is to read human material be written about like products, this ethnicity section in particular is weird. I don't think if you're buying baby material that you need to be sold on the idea that you want your baby to look like you (in the broad sense that people of a given ethnicity might vaguely share features), but this stuff:

Quote:Looking at a Black or African American egg donor profiles can give you insight into their heritage for things that are important to you such as celebrating Juneteenth or Kwanzaa or keeping their culture alive by eating region specific foods such as Kushari from Egypt or Doro Wat from Ethiopia.

Quote:Turkish Egg Donor: It could be fond memories of baklava at home growing up, or getting a döner kebab while out with your family. Finding a Turkish egg donor can ensure you are able to pass some of that tradition down to your child.

Quote:The Chinese New Year is celebrated annually, one of the [url=https://surrogate.com/"https://www.chinahighlights.com/festivals/traditional-festival//"]country’s most important holidays[/url] that’s led to similar celebrations in other Asian countries. Maybe you had family traditions growing up to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Finding a Chinese egg donor that values not only the holiday but other aspects of their heritage is absolutely possible.

is really weird. As if a genetically Chinese baby born to an African-American family would be incapable of learning to enjoy Kwanzaa...? Or I guess that the Chinese baby would automatically like Chinese holidays, even if they're raised in an African-American family that doesn't celebrate them? I assume it's just SEO content stuffing, but so strange.

It’s definitely weird.

That said, a genetically Chinese baby most certainly would have a hard time fitting into a Polish family and enjoying the celebrations, not because she is of Chinese origin, but because the people around her will likely be bigoted or biased against her. She will never be allowed to fully belong.

OffMyTit

Mar 27 2025, 4:10 AM #6

(Mar 26 2025, 7:59 PM)VerdantHorizon That surrogacy site is bizarre. Aside from unsettling it is to read human material be written about like products, this ethnicity section in particular is weird. I don't think if you're buying baby material that you need to be sold on the idea that you want your baby to look like you (in the broad sense that people of a given ethnicity might vaguely share features), but this stuff:

Quote:Looking at a Black or African American egg donor profiles can give you insight into their heritage for things that are important to you such as celebrating Juneteenth or Kwanzaa or keeping their culture alive by eating region specific foods such as Kushari from Egypt or Doro Wat from Ethiopia.

Quote:Turkish Egg Donor: It could be fond memories of baklava at home growing up, or getting a döner kebab while out with your family. Finding a Turkish egg donor can ensure you are able to pass some of that tradition down to your child.

Quote:The Chinese New Year is celebrated annually, one of the [url=https://surrogate.com/"https://www.chinahighlights.com/festivals/traditional-festival//"]country’s most important holidays[/url] that’s led to similar celebrations in other Asian countries. Maybe you had family traditions growing up to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Finding a Chinese egg donor that values not only the holiday but other aspects of their heritage is absolutely possible.

is really weird. As if a genetically Chinese baby born to an African-American family would be incapable of learning to enjoy Kwanzaa...? Or I guess that the Chinese baby would automatically like Chinese holidays, even if they're raised in an African-American family that doesn't celebrate them? I assume it's just SEO content stuffing, but so strange.

VerdantHorizon

Mar 27 2025, 7:39 AM

@OffMyTit - Good point. I know that can happen with adoptees of a different race than their adoptive families, feeling like their identity isn't fully where they're raised nor where they were originally born, and it would make it even more complicated if the child *was* born into their family's culture but was treated by those outside as if they weren't.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever actually heard of anyone using surrogacy or egg/sperm donation having a child of an ethnicity that didn't match theirs/their spouse's/their mix, which makes it even odder that the website wrote the page like this... I think there are better ways to pad out "we have healthy donors from XYZ countries"

VerdantHorizon

Mar 27 2025, 7:39 AM #7

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