Egg donors. They’re a lot different than sperm donors. First, using the term egg donor and sperm donor is more subtle coercive language practice. Say to a person “you were created by an egg donor/a sperm donor” and that person, when they reach maturity is more likely to think “I have a biological mother/father out there.” We live in western societies that find it perfectly acceptable to create children for monetary gain. Children who grow up who have a longing for answers, a connection with biological kin, and to get to know their biological parent; at least for the majority. It’s human nature, so it is society that has been going against the grain.
How are biological mothers via egg donations and biological fathers via sperm donation different? Well, men have it a lot easier. They go into a room, look at a little Playboy or what have you or fantasize about Scarlett Johansson or Katheryn Winnick or whoever they have the hots for, and have themselves a good time and deposit semen. The end. They can do this over and over.
Biological mothers via egg donation have it much harder. A woman’s eggs must be stimulated before being harvested, and the harvest is a painful procedure. This is why women are paid so much more anywhere from $10,000 to $15,000 last time I checked, although the back of my mind is saying some places might be upwards of $28,000.
Women donating their eggs in order for other people to raise their biological children must take hormones in order for eggs to be stimulated to get as many eggs as possible. Okay, so a lot of women try IVF on themselves with their own eggs using hormones, what’s your point?
Simple. Women who have hormones used on themselves for their own eggs to be implanted in their own bodies so they can raise their own biological children are a class onto themselves and cannot be put into this study. Those women have medical histories done and are carefully screened afterward, very carefully screened. Also, those women (not saying it snobbishly just making a polite distinction) do so many rounds of IVF until happy success or depressing reality that it won’t work. Egg
Egg donors, on the other hand, can come back for upwards of nine or ten rounds of hormones being injected into them. Your average woman, even of the upper class, doing it to try and conceive her own children could never afford nine or ten rounds or if they happen to have the budget of Celine Dion (who was the fourteenth born child to an impoverished family and would have been a prime target of the abortion and adoption industries) what doctor would allow a woman who isn’t classified as an “egg donor” to be pumped with egg producing hormones ten times? My educated guess….none.
Women donating their eggs for others to raise their biological children have a much darker scenario. Once they walk out they become medical mysteries. There is no medical follow up. They are pumped with hormones, handed their $15,000 or whatever, never to be seen or heard from again.
Does this not seem shady to my intellectual readers? You pump a young woman’s body (as egg donors must be in their twenties) with hormones which will change the physiology of a woman, and herself psychologically, and then you do no post-checkup, no blood work, no follow through? How is this even legal?
For at least fourteen years now people, such as Dr. Jessica Schneider MD whose daughter Jennifer died from complications of egg donation, have been advocating for not only post treatment and post checkups but keeping a registered list of anonymous donors. Even now in 2017, there is no list for anonymous sperm donors and anonymous egg donors (aka people who give their egg or sperm to be made into their biological children for others to raise but that is a mouthful to say and write every time). Without a list, it makes it very hard to hold companies accountable for any medical malpractices and for any major medical mishaps such as the death of young Jennifer at only 31 years old.
Without a list, it makes it very hard to hold companies accountable for any medical malpractices and for any major medical mishaps such as the death of young Jennifer at only 31 years old. According to Dr. Schenider, MD her daughter had no prior indication of colon cancer and no family medical history. Right after finishing her multiple rounds, Jessica developed an aggressive form of colon cancer at age 29 and died at age 31. Jessica is not the only case.
Stories are starting to emerge from the families of “egg donors” from both here in the United States and across the pond in the United Kingdom of young women with no family history of any type of cancer suddenly getting colon cancer, and a couple of cases of breast cancer. Colon cancer is something you don’t even look for until you’re 50 unless you have a family medical history of it (please read my article on how closed adoptees like myself are discriminatorily kept from knowing our biological medical information even in life or death sentences and my article about how adoption agencies don’t even have to share it if they don’t want to even if the natural/biological family wants to). These are young women in their twenties and thirties who are coming down with colon cancer or breast cancer with zero indication they are at any risk prior to donation.
One must ask themselves are they reporting to their own general physicians and ob/gyns that they have been egg donors? Are these OB/GYNs and GPs aware of the connection? Are gastroenterologists been made aware of the connection? Yet without a list made of anonymous women donors we can’t even be scientifically sure there is a connection. We can only speculate at this point that if there are both American and British cases of young women battling cancer or far worse, dying from cancer, that they had no indication of being at risk pre-donation, but then develop colon cancer post-donation, that the surge in hormones in their body most likely
Without a list made of anonymous women donors we can’t even be scientifically sure there is a connection although the evidence out there points very strongly to there needing to be massive changes in the egg business. We can only speculate at this point that if there are both American and British cases of young women battling cancer or far worse, dying from cancer, that they had no indication of being at risk pre-donation, but then develop colon cancer post-donation, that the surge in hormones in their body most likely is contributing to the development of cancer possibly aggressing the cancer cells to reproduce. Without a list of names we cannot figure out exactly how many are getting colon or breast cancer, or other cases not yet documented by survivors or victims’ families, and thus it makes it much harder for the medical community to save lives.
Without a list of names we cannot figure out exactly how many are getting colon or breast cancer, or other cases not yet documented by survivors or victims’ families, and thus it makes it much harder for the medical community to save lives.
Well, you might be thinking what about the many open ID biological mothers via egg donation can’t we just look at their rates? We could, except studies aren’t being done. That’s the problem. Of course, these young women aren’t be informed about the psychological, physical and physiological giving away their eggs will have on them for life; that moment where they stop and think to pay their Yale tuition they have their own flesh and blood children out there somewhere. The bottom line is, even though open ID has a list of names because they are open to contact when the created child turns 18, there are still not post-check ups and post-monitoring being done by these companies or on a wide scale.
What do I recommend? Well, at this point I’ve only lightly delved into this study so I feel it would be a bit embarrassing for me to give any recommendations. I’ll leave that up to the ob/gyns and other medical professionals. My goal is to shed light on the fact nobody is keeping a tidy record of names, nobody is doing any research on the implications both physical, physiological and psychological on what happens to young women you pump with hormones.
My goal is to shed light on the fact nobody is keeping a tidy record of names, nobody is doing any research on the implications both physical, physiological and psychological on what happens to young women you pump with hormones.
My one suggestion to those who were egg donors. Err on the side of caution and have a colonoscopy and a mammogram. Sure, it won’t be pleasant but it just may save your life. To those considering becoming an egg donor consider what you have learnt here tonight. Women are coming forward strongly insisting egg donation gave them terminal cancer. Backing out does not make you selfish. I know many draw you in with comments like “make someone happy today”. Is your health and life worth risking or ending to make some infertile woman happy? Perhaps it’s time for women with infertility to come to terms with the fact they won’t have children and were destined for a different lifestyle. My heart goes out to those who are heartbreakingly suffering from infertility, but with more cases of cancer popping up and a lack of medical follow up being done that needs to take precedence.
Solutions? 1. Make sure gastroenterologists are on the state board of health for “egg donors” in each state. I know none are in New York.
2. Create a list of anonymous donors from the present and past.
3. Only allow open donors and only allow a maximum amount of times women can donate (as in three times).
4. Ban anonymous donors. Everyone must be open.
Exposing Adoption 