“The sale of human eggs favors the ‘commoditization’ of human parts; human eggs should not be in a shopping basket on the same level as a grocery item,” Ian Galloway, convenor of the church’s Church and Society Council, told Ecumenical News International.
The sale of human eggs is not allowed in Britain, where donors are only compensated “reasonable” expenses and loss of earnings up to a maximum of 250 British pounds (US $375).
Galloway said, “Just as it’s wrong to buy and sell human beings, it is wrong to buy and sell human eggs. It’s a tribute to the creativity of scientists, biologists, and medical doctors that some solutions to infertility are now available.”
He added, however, “The Church of Scotland has a clear policy against the sale of human eggs because it considers the practice exploitative of the poor, who may feel compelled to become donors for a fee, undergoing invasive, potentially dangerous, and often painful procedures.”
The official of the Kirk, as the Church of Scotland is known locally, cited recent cases of donors in Eastern Europe and India selling their eggs to the detriment of their health.
He estimated that the revenue of the assisted reproductive technology industry in the United States is in the region of US $2 billion. Donors receive only a small amount of this.
The Church of Scotland’s concerns follow the publication of recent news reports about a cooperative initiative between American and British fertility clinics focusing on the marketing of human eggs to British fertility patients.
At a seminar in London on March 17, organized by London Bridge Centre and the Genetics and IVF Institute in Virginia, participants had their names put into a draw to win a complete treatment cycle worth an estimated £13,000.
Egyptian-born and British-trained Mohammed Menabawey, a director at the London Bridge Centre, responded to what his company called a “media frenzy” following the one-day seminar.
“All we are trying to do is to react to changes in supply and demand and help them,” said Menabawey. “This is how Americans do it ˆ in order to attract people to seminars they offer one free treatment for people to come.”
Peter Kearney, spokesperson for the Catholic Church in Scotland, said that most people would be “repulsed” by the idea of using a human egg as a reward for attending a seminar. Kearney told ENI, “We have a noble tradition in Britain of donating blood when it’s needed but no one would dream of charging for their blood. We are fully in agreement with the Church of Scotland on this subject.”
In a statement, Josephine Quintavalle, director of the think-tank, “Comment on Reproductive Ethics,” said, “The capacity of the IVF industry to commodify human life reaches a new low with this deplorable initiative. Imagine a child one day finding out that he or she came into being thanks to such a blatantly commercial initiative — won in a raffle.”
