Egg as Capital: Human Egg Procurement in the Fertility Industry and the Stem Cell Research EnterpriseAuthor: Lisa C. Ikemoto

By: Carolina Mlynarczyk

GameteA mature male or female germ cell usually possessing a haploid chromosome set and capable of initiating formation of a new diploid individual by fusion with a gamete of the opposite sex

EggThe egg cell, or ovum, is the female reproductive cell in oogamous (sexual reproduction) organisms. The egg cell is typically not capable of active movement, and it is much larger than the motile sperm cells. When egg and sperm fuse, a diploid cell is formed, which gradually grows into a new organism.Various usesRaw materialOnly women provide

Egg

EmbryoAn unborn or unhatched offspring in the process of developmentStem CellsRenewable Manipulated Plasticity:1. Mesenchymal cells (blood and bone

marrow)- limited2. Human Embryonic stem cells – pluripotent

(potenital to become any cell)

Embryo

Egg as Capital?Eggs- Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART)

Treat infertility/Creating Family

Embryos- Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research (hESC)

Produce cures/economic engine [for government supporting hESC)hESC use both eggs and embryos but mostly need eggs

The ProblemEthical problems with procurement/transferHealth risksNew practice to facilitate transfer; “spares”Process of transferring eggs/embryos to:

CapitalMarket products

Surrogates not wanting to give child up to biological parents after birth (surrogate helped house a ‘life’ but the zygote was produced from paternal parents and or mothers egg and fathers sperm (variations depending on root of the problem).Borrowing a uterus (?)Parentage disputes due to gamete/embryo mix-upReligious issues- using donor sperm is committing adultery and resulting child is viewed as illegitimate despite husbands consent to insemination by chosen sperm

“They key to this process is the normalization of ownership and control of human body parts by

others, which is, in fact, the legal and economic premise of the

biotechnology industry (Sunder Raja 2006, 60-64).” (Ikemoto, 763-764)

What might make egg/embryo procurement ethical?

“…resulting in the legal and normative principle that informed consent confers legal protection and exclusive access and control on the one who obtains it.” (Ikemoto, 764)“…informed consent serve as a dual role- protecting patient interests and conferring commercial benefit to the enterprise [selling body parts].” (Ikemoto, 764)Who has OWNERSHIP

Informed ConsentART- medical procedureDoctor-patient relationship

Shifting control doctor patient

Lack of regulation means more emphasis on informed consentLegal perspective; gatekeeperNaturalization of processes

The Controversy1. “…ART use would solidify control over women’s

bodies and health by so- called experts,2. That ART use reinforced the assumption that

women’s natural role was motherhood at a time when women were achieving gains in the marketplace,

3. And that ART use would result in commodifying women because of their reproductive capacity.” (Ikemoto, 767)

o Van Dyck says that these processes have be naturalized.

Can there be a price on carrying a child? How much are eggs worth?

($3,000 and up); coercion and exploitation of youthRisk of procurement

Bearing versus rearing children. Does surrogacy take away from a women’s ability to carry children?What are the reasons women choose, surrogacy/in-vitro and are those reasons ethical?Eggs as body parts; legal consent leads to commodificationA woman who donates, has offspring somewhere out there. Paternal industry profits out of patent given to the by women.

“No existing social theory, religious or materialist, has satisfactorily explained why and how societies regulate reproduction as they do. This lack of explanation is even more odd when one bears in mind that all societies regulate reproduction, and there are many differences among these sets of social rules.” (Thorne, 140)

“The popularity of technological explanations, and technological determinism, further reinforced the blinders [of Marxism]. By technological determinism I mean the view that inventions, the product of human inventiveness, shape basic social alternatives.” (Thorne, 141)

“The second movement, eugenics, was really a subcategory of neo-Malthusianism, an effort to apply population control differentially and thus to reduce the size of certain unwanted human “types.” Eugenical thought originally was primarily directed at the elimination of idiocy, criminality, and drunkenness, on the misguided theory that such undesirable qualities were hereditary. “ (Thorne, 143)

A Human Need?The industry uses certain terms to sell people on the thought fertility treatments by using terms such as:

‘Infertility treatment’‘Assisted Reproduction’‘Family Formation’ ‘Test tube baby- human need; justification for tech.

Family Formation“The use of ART offers a means of achieving family formation by contract, which places the family in the public sphere, but the norm that family is a private-sphere entity persists, albeit in weakened form.” (Ikemoto, 768).LGBTQ community benefits- Opposition to the regular family model; regulation; individual choice (?)Egg have other forms of use than child production

Realizing full potential of reproductive self control?Can one realize full self control of reproduction when some women feel the need to sell their eggs depending on their economic needs? Choice exercised through the fertility market?

Roe v. Wade is challenged Gonzales v. Carhart

“ART use as a means of achieving family formation aims the gaze at the end result- the child and the resulting parental relationships.” (Ikemoto, 768)Success is measured by in vitro cycles that end in birth.Choices made > choices offered

Other IssuesFertility spares- what happens to consent then?Process by which eggs are procured- who does whatThe link= fertility doctors Ethics of a good researcherPolicies (Ikemoto, 775); Will requests and rules be enforced; sufficient protection for egg donorsBiology versus industry

Tax incentives to fun universities to keep conducting research- is this coercion? Benefit of gaining money?Privatized biomedical research but federal funding.The public was no longer the primary beneficiaryMoore v. The Regents of the University of California (Ikemoto 777-778)- DISCLOSURE

Who Really Has The Power?

“Informed consent is the mechanism that transforms a gift into property. “ (Ikemoto, 778)If donated eggs are a ‘gift’ should people get rights when their cells are patented?Are the donors really as autonomous as they think if they do think this at all? “In other words, the question of whether anyone can own human tissue is no longer regarded as an ethical issue.” (Ikemoto, 779); powerful commodity (?)

“One result is that consent has become both a mechanism for protecting the intrinsic values of self and a means of transferring extrinsic value to others.” (Ikemoto, 779)Some women burdened with decisions because they have no choiceCan women be considered equal for a time when they do not carry their child? Does this allow them to advance in a male dominated world?