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14 February 2006
The Scottish Council on Human Bioethics is dismayed that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority may be about to authorise the harvesting of eggs from women for the sole purpose of embryo research.
At present, women who have had their ovaries stimulated to produce eggs as part of fertility treatment, such as IVF, may donate spare unfertilised eggs for research purposes. The process of stimulating egg production involves taking large doses of hormones and there is a serious risk to the woman’s health of subsequent ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome which can cause fertility problems, kidney damage, and even death.
Despite these dangers, it is now proposed that women should be asked to undergo this process solely for the purpose of producing eggs which will be used for research, such as cloning to produce stem cells. To describe this as ‘altruistic donation’ is to mask the very real hazards and put a misleading gloss on the gravity of what is being proposed.
Dr Calum MacKellar of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics stated "It is clearly going even further down the road of instrumentalising women - of using them as a means to an end, which is surely depersonalising."
Further, the recent case of the South Korean scientist Woo Suk Hwang, who used eggs from junior members of his team for his research, should have set alarm bells ringing in the HFEA to ensure that such coercion could not take place here. But, instead of completely excluding from such donation any women who have any connection with an embryological research group, all the HFEA is proposing is ‘independent counselling’ to try to make sure they are not being pressurised.
Dr Calum MacKellar commented that this would be totally inadequate. "It is clear that HFEA is more concerned with championing research than ethical standards. It is failing in its duty to be an ethical guardian of society."