Well, here's the latest. If you want a child but you are a bit busy at work, reports BioEdge, you can send a human embryo to India, where it will be implanted in a surrogate mother of your choice. Then you pop along later to collect the baby.Some 350 Indian clinics offer surrogacy services at a quarter of the cost in some other places. "We receive a growing number of embryos shipped from around the globe," says Dr Naina Patel, from Anand's Akanksha Infertility Clinic.
In Britain, there are long waiting lists for donated eggs and sperm. British women may not sell their eggs, but are allowed to claim expenses only. That may change. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is considering allowing women to be paid thousands of pounds for donated eggs.
Young women wanting to sell their eggs for cash to help them through university would do well to consider what American bioethicist Wesley J. Smith has to say:
Egg donation is often pitched by buyers without warnings about the potential risks. These can include infection, disability, infertility, cancer, even death. . . No studies have been conducted about the long term impact on women from donating their eggs. . .
Given the speed in which the fertility and biotechnology industries are advancing, protecting women here and abroad from "eggsploitation" has become a matter of urgent concern. Medical studies are needed to identify donors and examine the breadth and scope of long-term risk from egg extraction. Hearings need to be held to begin the important job of placing rigorous regulations. . . International protocols need to be negotiated to protect poor women from being biologically colonized. . .
The stakes in human health and societal welfare are just too high to permit laissez faire gamete procurement.
