Row erupts over payment to women donating their eggs

Furious accusations of exploitation have been made concerning the issue of how much women should be paid for donating their eggs.

- MAYA OPPENHEIM

Women’s rights campaigners accused the government of enabling the targeting of low-income women by increasing the amount of money they can earn.

Campaign group Surrogacy Concern urged the government to block the fertility watchdog’s plans to increase the payment to egg donors from £750 per cycle to £986.

Campaigners also called for adverts encouraging women to sell their eggs to include health risks as they warned this is not currently a legal obligation. But the fertility watchdog has insisted the rise in payment reflects increasing inflation and is not an attempt to “monetise” egg donation.

Helen Gibson, Surrogacy Concern’s founder, said: “Egg donation can in no way be called ‘altruistic’ when a payment of £986 is being made, potentially up to 10 times per donor. We do not pay kidney or blood donors: why is an exception made to incentivise women to sell their eggs, which are then often sold on in packages by fertility clinics at huge profits? We are clear: this is exploitation of women.”

She said they do not support any payment being made for egg donation as she called for adverts targeting women for egg harvesting to only be allowed if they include health risks. “They are not legally currently required to do so, putting egg donor adverts at odds with advertising standards more generally,” Ms Gibson added.