Paying a woman for her eggs to use in stem cell research has been a bioethical no-no for years. But this past June, New York State decided to allow just that, becoming the first state to permit public money to be used in this way. The decision, which allows payment of up to $10,000, will likely jump-start donations—and thereby research. Many bioethicists, however, worry that the financial incentive could exploit women and compromise their health.

 

Ethical issues surround egg donation because the process is not without risk. It requires a series of hormonal stimulation injections as well as an invasive procedure to retrieve the eggs. The long-term health effects and risks of complication are not well known. A woman who provides eggs for research is “assuming unknown risk for unknown benefits,” says Debra Mathews, a bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University. The lingering unknowns prompted the National Academy of Science to issue in 2005 nonbinding guidelines to prohibit payment (but allow direct reimbursement for expenses), as a means to protect underprivileged women in particular.

 

Various research teams have observed those guidelines and tried to recruit women to donate their eggs for free. But these altruism-dependent attempts failed to find any takers. Instead scientists have primarily relied on eggs left over from in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures. The secondhand supply, however, is small, and some question the quality of these eggs. Many may have been rejected for implantation because they were subpar to begin with. Storage and transport can also be problematic; as Mathews explains, “We’re not good at freezing and thawing eggs yet.” The lack of quality eggs, along with an 11-year, $600-million directive from the New York State legislature to further stem cell research, persuaded New York’s Empire State Stem Cell Board to allow payment to women for egg donation. The board governs publicly funded stem cell work and is in charge of overseeing grants for related research. Proponents of the board’s decision note that payment for similar services is not unheard of. “We pay people to participate in research that has zero benefit to them [but carries] risk all the time, and we trust people to make that decision for themselves,” says Mathews, a member of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.