Stem cell debate: Should women get paid for eggs?

MS NBC ^ | 02.05.06 | Daniel S. Levine

[Coleus]

The ad in the back pages of the free Washington, D.C., news weekly was curious enough, warning women that they or their loved ones could suffer from debilitating diseases like Parkinson's or cancer and inviting them to let their eggs "be part of the cure."

But it's had reverberations 2,500 miles away where a debate in California is raging over how scientists can acquire the human eggs critical to stem cell research -- specifically, whether it is ethical or even legal to pay women thousands of dollars to provide them.

The ad in the Jan. 3 issue of The Washington Post Express was identified in a Washington Post story as being for Advanced Cell Technology, a Worcester, Mass.-based company that is soon expected to announce plans to open an office in the Bay Area. Advanced Cell Technology would not confirm or deny placing the ad. It acknowledged it is talking to Washington-area clinics about egg procurement, an issue that's been complicated by Massachusetts' restrictions on payment other than "expenses" for egg donors.

"At this stage we are not soliciting anything other than donations," said William Caldwell, IV, CEO of Advanced Cell Technology, which in the past paid women $4,000 for time, effort and expenses relating to egg donation. "That may change. Our ethics advisory board and our historical practice have allowed us to pay woman for pain and suffering, as well as lost wages, as well as child care."

A national debate

The voter-established California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, formed to direct $3 billion into stem cell research, is scheduled to vote Feb. 10 on standards that will spell out to what extent women can be compensated for providing eggs used in research funded by the institute. It's expected to limit payment to expenses -- but to broadly interpret expenses

[Age of Reason]

If it saves me or one of my loved ones from death or disability, it's fine by me.

[ARridgerunner]

fyi

[null and void]

Yea, I know, but the sperm isn't used for fetal farming, the eggs/oocytes are.

Virgin not-Birth?

[montag813]

No. But they will. Men get paid for sperm.

You're kidding. How much?

[montag813]

Sheesh, in NY/NJ they offer $7,000.

Per egg? What is involved in removal of an egg? Long needle, or major surgery?

[Calpernia]

I actually don't know. They don't give the details on the radio ads.

[BlazingArizona]

i don't like that new policy, what they tell donors now is that they can't guarantee blood if no blood is there. Many donors call their donor chairmen for blood for a loved one and all they can tell them that it's on a first-come first-served basis by FDA rules.

Since blood you get in surgery is not "your" blood, your past donations were never any guarantee of supply. But have you noticed that today's "donation centers" are continually whining about lack of blood? Under the old blood banking system, you never heard of shortages, because the incentive of saving credit assured that there were always enough donors to keep the blood supply up.

[MHGinTN]

I'd say you understand it pretty well ... except the new human being is fair game from embryo age to nine months of gestation, not the full term of course because that would be farming 'babies'. You see, the flaw in the leftist dissembling is in the dehumanization of the newly alive human being; embryo is an age all of us reading this script went through in our individual lifetime, thus the dehumanization of the earliest ages must be slipped past the public's understanding in this debate in order to hide the cannibalism of the clone and kill technology.

Note the following: "That may change. Our ethics advisory board and our historical practice have allowed us to pay woman for pain and suffering, as well as lost wages, as well as child care." Child care?! What about the child newly alive in the somatic cell nuclear transfer? [And being alive in a petri dish doesn't mean the new human isn't differentiating cells for his or her survival, because the petri-dish-being must task some cells to build the organs (plac4enta and umbilicus) for survival in the water world of the uterus --or artificial womb; they're already working feverishly on that environ, with an artificial womb already able to keep a goat fetus alive for at least seventeen weeks-- beginning as early as the 16 cell stage!] Care? Harvest it! Care for older humans by cannibalizing youngest humans, THAT'S what this is all about, though the BM (big media) will never tell that truth and risk the American people rejecting the agenda.

[MHGinTN]

Not far off with that comment. Did you know that some abortuaries advise pregnant women of two or three months pregnancy to wait until after the sixteenth week of gestation, to perform abortions when the alive human will not come apart so easily when jerked from the woman's body with metal forceps? Those harvested babies are more valued on the tissues for research market also!

[YaYa123]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1786843/posts


Eggs will be bought and paid for in Great Britain, according to this article

[VOA]

With one hand, Big Pharma is patenting every part of the human genome
its lawyers can get their mitts on; with the other, it hides behind
a mask of moral high-mindedness when it comes to paying people for
medical products from human donors.

Agreed.
One of the first signs of cracks in the reputation of the South
Korean "cloner" was the question of how he'd gotten human eggs.
I was a bit suprised to hear the general thought in the scientific "ethics"
arena was that eggs should be donated, not sold.

Embryonic stem-cell workers say they are just working with
a purely materialistic phenonmenon in terms of embryonic stem cells.
Not much different than buying lumber in order to build houses.

But when it comes time to obtain the raw materials like any company
does....they want the necessary raw materials for FREE!

What a bunch of hypocrites.

[Coleus]

thanks for the ping.. Here's another article.

Study: Women Who Donate Eggs For Fertility Research Face Loss of Life and Limb