The natural way to connect the stem-cell research debate with women's rights is to note that the same conservatives who are against embryonic stem cell research are also usually opposed to abortion rights. At least that's one way I'd always thought about the issue.
But as Marcy Darnovsky of the Center for Genetics and Society writes, young women are needed to act as egg donors to further certain types of stem-cell research. And few people are asking the important questions about the safety of egg harvesting.
Most embryonic stem cell research does not require women’s eggs. To date, all existing embryonic stem cell lines have been derived from embryos that were created but not used for fertility purposes. [...] But some researchers are trying to develop another derivation method, which relies on the technique known as research cloning or somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). Those efforts do require additional eggs, in large numbers.
And egg retrieval isn't exactly a walk in the park, which is something I could have guessed when I saw ads in my college newspaper offering egg donors thousands of dollars.
Egg retrieval involves giving a woman hormones to first “shut down� and then “over-stimulate� her ovaries, followed by surgical extraction of multiple eggs under general anesthesia. Though the procedure is widely used in fertility clinics, data about both its short-term and long-term risks are grossly inadequate. Serious adverse reactions, even several deaths, have been reported.
California funds stem-cell research with state money, and recently enacted a law classifying egg donors as "research subjects." This will ensure women understand the risks involved and are covered in the case of an adverse event. Darnovsky notes that few states other than California fund this type of research. But if that changes, we need to be advocating for similar safeguards in other states. Something to keep an eye on.
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Scientists are busily working on easier, safer ways to produce human eggs for research, though.
Argh, that should have been a link to this article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050516081103.htm
Egg donation entails a level of risk lower than that of abortion. Should we outlaw abortion because it is too risky? Why are we treating young women as if they are too naive to control their own bodies? This is the exact same reasoning behind parental consent laws.
1) Women decide to have an abortion to provide a very direct benefit to themselves. Providing eggs to researchers is completely different, especially when the research is at such an early stage.
2) We actually don't have data to know whether egg retrieval is more or less risky than abortion -- the lack of data is one of the big problems.
3) No one is talking about outlawing egg retrieval. The discussion is about regulating it so as to minimize the risks it poses, and about lowering the temperature on a debate that's overheated to the point that it's difficult to think clearly about the benefits and risks.
4) To my way of thinking, putting women at the center of attention (rather than speculative research, or embryos, or eggs for that matter) is a feminist approach. And reining in the excesses of the market is a progressive one.
And few people are asking the important questions about the safety of egg harvesting.
I'm glad you mentioned this, Amanda. There is a long article in today's LA Times about two gay men who wanted children. It's the first in a series, and it's very interesting to follow their thinking through the screening process:
Chad was intrigued, therefore, when he discovered surrogacy on the Internet. He liked that creating their own child would give them more control. They could handpick their children's DNA and insist on high standards of prenatal care. They could aim for twins by transferring more than one embryo, perhaps completing their family in a single transaction.
Chad also learned that the process was prohibitively expensive, almost twice as much as the typical adoption. It required carefully drawn contracts to guarantee that neither the egg donor nor the surrogate could claim parental rights. After birth, the biological father's partner would have to petition the courts for shared parental rights through a filing known as a second-parent adoption.
...
Chad and David were acutely aware that once a surrogate got pregnant with their child, her body was hers to control. They could not force her to selectively reduce in the event she carried multiple fetuses. They could not force her to abort if tests detected a terrible abnormality. It was important, therefore, to make their views plain from the start, to find a surrogate who would defer to their wishes, and to write their agreement into a contract.
Responding to a questionnaire from Hinson, Chad and David wrote that they "would love to have twins" and "would happily accept triplets." They said they would "accept fetal reduction for triplets at the surrogate's discretion," but would "ask for fetal reduction for any amount greater than three."
As for abortion, they wrote: "If the pregnancy became life-threatening for the surrogate, we would consider therapeutic abortion. [Susan: They would consider it?! How kind. Didn't we just establish this was her decision alone?] We would request to terminate the pregnancy if there was a significant possibility that the baby would not survive the birth or would suffer significantly after the birth because of a genetic abnormality."
[Bolding mine]
So, two women's bodies are "used" soley in an attempt to limit the possibility either will bond with the baby they make for someone else, and nevermind the stress bearing twins or triplets puts on a woman-- that's the ideal outcome! I'm sympathetic to the desire to raise children, but these are very young women being used and I sure hope they fully understand the risks and don't ultimately suffer for taking them.
Ready to be dads, but they're going to need help
For a baby of their own, David and Chad would have to draw on science, the law, their families — and most of all, each other.
By Kevin Sack
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-surrogacy29oct29,0,5016763.story
I'm glad you mentioned this, Amanda.
I'm sorry-- that should have been "Ann."
Here's more on the surrogacy story, from today's article in the series:
They knew their egg donor only as Jessica, but their dreams of building a family relied heavily on this near total stranger. She was single and 25, in her egg-producing prime, but she had never been pregnant or donated eggs before.
For the previous three weeks, at Muasher's direction, Jessica had injected herself daily with hormones. Each morning, she numbed one of her hips with an icepack and jabbed it with Lupron, a synthetic formulation that prevented her from ovulating until the desired moment.
At night, she gave herself two shots that stimulated egg production — Follistim (derived from the ovarian cells of Chinese hamsters) and Repronex (extracted from the urine of postmenopausal women). In addition to bruising from the injections, Jessica suffered side effects like sleeplessness, headaches and bloating that sometimes forced her to unbutton her jeans.
Muasher carefully monitored her hormone levels and follicle development through regular blood tests and sonograms, and tweaked the dosages accordingly. The adjustments were critical to warding off a rare but dangerous condition known as hyperstimulation, which could lead to renal failure or blood clots.
"It's more of an art than a science," Muasher explained, "because people respond differently to the medications." Indeed, he had tried to treat Jessica conservatively, but based on her sonograms he projected she would yield at least 20 eggs, well above average.
Precisely 35 hours before Muasher planned to retrieve the eggs, Jessica gave herself a final "trigger shot" of yet another hormone that would prepare her follicles for ovulation. The timing of the procedures was calculated so that the peak of her egg maturation would dovetail with the priming of the surrogate's uterus for maximum receptivity.
...
After Muasher informed Chad and David of Jessica's bountiful harvest, they donned yellow surgical gowns and blue hairnets to greet their heroine. Though her full identity was to remain anonymous, she had agreed to let them visit her in the recovery room.
"Twenty-six! Twenty-six!" she grinned, giving a thumbs-up.
"Oh my gosh, you're such a trouper," David said. "Fertile Myrtle."
They presented her with an arrangement of white roses and yellow freesia, and then a box from Neiman's. It contained a sterling Konstantino bracelet, adorned with egg-shaped gold balls.
...
WHITNEY felt ready to play her part. A 25-year-old college student, waitress, and single mother from Frederick, Md., she had been wearing estrogen patches on her lower abdomen for nearly three weeks. As the estrogen seeped into her body, it coaxed her uterus into reacting as if she were ovulating. The hormonal surge made her so emotional she found herself sobbing through "Fahrenheit 9/11."
On the day Muasher collected Jessica's eggs, Whitney added a daily shot of progesterone to thicken her uterine lining. It was administered with a 2-inch-long needle. If she got pregnant, she would have to continue the shots and patches for up to two months, one of many burdens she would endure for her $20,000 fee. (If she did not get pregnant, she would receive just $2,000, plus $500 for each unsuccessful embryo transfer.)
In the nearly five months since Whitney had signed on with Chad and David, they had made a point of going to dinner and visiting each other's homes. But the time they spent together only seemed to magnify their differences.
She couldn't relate to their vacations in Tuscany and the concert tickets they bid for on EBay. She found herself afraid to touch anything in their immaculately decorated house. Their walk-in closet was the size of her apartment bedroom, and she wondered if they had any idea how much baby-proofing the place would require.
...
The eggs don't take.
Whitney remained committed to Chad and David, but the process was wearing her down as well. The drugs made her sleepless and moody. She couldn't help but feel responsible for the failures. Her boyfriend had started calling her a "guinea pig." And if she didn't get pregnant, she would not receive the lion's share of her fee.
...
Their lawyer, Diane Hinson, got in touch with Jessica, who instantly agreed to a second egg retrieval. This time she yielded 32 eggs, even more than before. Chad and David rewarded her with earrings to match her bracelet.
"If we have to do it a third time, you get a tiara," David said.
...
The eggs don't take the second time either.
To try to isolate the problem, Muasher suggested new tests on Whitney, including a biopsy of her uterine lining. The tests would be invasive and costly. And if they detected trouble, such as a blockage, it might require surgery. Whitney, who had already been subjected to 64 injections and 164 estrogen patches, hadn't signed on for that.
...
Chad's sister volunteers. So now a third woman's body is involved.
How would her husband, Jay, feel about her carrying her brother's child? Only a year earlier, they had balked at her being the egg donor.
Sissy told Chad they had discussed the idea, and that Jay, an engineering professor, was fully on board. Surrogacy, he had remarked, was "like loaning someone your car, only a little more."
Sissy assumed she would develop a special bond with the baby, and might even suffer postpartum depression. But she thought it would be worth it to know that Chad and David finally had a child to love.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-surrogacy30oct30,0,1477803.story?coll=la-headlines-nation