It's legal in Britain. It's legal in the US. So why isn't it legal here?

For a grueling process that involves a number of invasive tests and seemingly endless hormone injections, donating eggs in Australia doesn’t currently offer much in return.

And that’s one of the reasons why, if amendments to the IVF code of ethics currently under consideration go ahead, Australian egg donors may soon be able to be paid for their trouble.

At the moment, women who donate their eggs do it only out of the good of their hearts. They also have to have completed their own family before going through the process.

Australia’s chief medical advisory and research authority, the National Health and Medical Research Council, is seeking public comment on whether women should be ”compensated for the reproductive effort and risks associated with donating their eggs” as part of its review of the Australian IVF ethics guidelines.

Fertility specialist Michael Chapman said there was a growing need for donors but not much incentive for women to donate their eggs, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

But, he says, if women were paid for the treatment there would be more willingness to donate.

”We can’t offer egg donors anything at the moment,” Professor Chapman said.

”They have to have two weeks of injections and go through a procedure … The payment of donors could make a difference to the availability of eggs and sperm.”

Donors can already be paid in some parts of the world including the US, with the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) guidelines noting that, while no consensus on an appropriate fee exists, “sums of $5,000 or more require justification and sums above $10,000 go beyond what is appropriate.”

Meanwhile in Britain, women aged 35 and younger are paid the equivalent of AUD$1340 to donate their eggs for a cycle. In both countries, donors are also reimbursed for medical and travel expenses.

Critics of egg donor payments across the globe have often pointed to the often unequal financial position of egg donors and recipients in countries where donor payment is legal, suggesting the practice is exploitative and coerces disadvantaged women into accepting unreasonable health risks.

Some groups have even drawn links between paid “egg harvesting” and human trafficking, with The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network in the US arguing that “the effect of this practice is to commodify women’s bodies.”

While the donor payment debate has yet to take on this heated nature in Australia, the question of whether Australian women should be paid to donate their eggs may need to be resolved in the near future: as Professor Chapman points out, the need for donors is growing as more women over 40 seek to have children.

According to data from the National Perinatal and Epidemiology Statistics Unit based at the University of New South Wales, two-thirds of women using donor eggs, embryos or sperm to have a baby are in that age bracket, with the average age being 41.

Women over 40 also account for one quarter of all IVF cycles undertaken, although only some of these women rely on donors to conceive, the UNSW statistics show.

Fertility clinics estimate that up to 10 per cent of women over 40 they now see are single and using assisted reproductive technology to have babies by themselves, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

The NHMRC public consultation will be accepting online submissions until 30 April.
 Further information about the call for submissions is available here.

Do you think egg donors in Australia should be paid?