“Whenever the employment rate is down, we get more calls,” says Robin von Halle, president of Alternative Reproductive Resources, an agency in Chicago where inquiries from would-be egg donors are up 30% in recent weeks — to about 60 calls a day. “We’re even getting men offering up their wives. It’s pretty scary.”

from Ova Time: Women Line Up to Donate Eggs for Money

Gamete donation lives in its own ethical morass. Personally I think if people choose to donate eggs or sperm, this is their choice. It gets sticky for me when I think about anonymous donation and the right for kids born from donated eggs or sperm to know about their genetic heritage. Since I have never donated eggs (between you and me, my eggs mostly suck) and my husband has never donated sperm (between you and me, his sperm is kinda lazy) I can’t speak to what sorts of counseling folks get ahead of time although I hear egg donors get more info than sperm donors seeing as how the process is more complicated and gives the clinic more access to the donor. But truthfully I haven’t given the set up all that much thought since pregnancy and genetic connection went by the wayside in my consideration pretty early on.

I am interested in the discussions about kids’ right to know since it in many ways mirrors the discussion in adoption. It sort of distills the open adoption records debate since it’s pretty much the same issue without the controversy of primal wound and other emotional arguments. Basically it comes down to whether or not we have the right to know our own histories. And if we do, how much of that history should belong to us — how many details ought we to have.

There’s a Donor Sibling Registry (this links to a video). Fertility docs think the registry is a good idea but it might cause a shortage of donors like has happened in Britain.

Here’s an interesting essay that talks about some of the unique challenges for donor kids, including the idea that they need access to other donor kids as they grow up so that they don’t feel weird or out-of-place. And another article that talks about the importance of half siblings.

I’ve got to get ready for a meeting so I have to stop here.