Women could be paid for donated eggs

Women could be paid for donating their eggs for fertility treatment in a controversial move being considered today.

The radical idea from the fertility regulatory body, the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA), comes amid a critical shortage of donated eggs and sperm. Almost all fertility clinics have said they cannot meet demand as more couples turn to IVF to help them conceive.

Experts fear the removal of donor anonymity from April will make the situation worse. Many doctors favour paying egg and sperm donors but the move would spark an ethical debate.

Under existing laws, egg donors may be paid ?15 at most, plus reasonable expenses.

But in some countries, including the US, there have been online auctions for eggs.

Josephine Quintavalle, director of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, attacked the idea of paying egg donors here and said it was not the HFEA's role to encourage egg and sperm donors. She said: "The Department of Health should be

concentrating on solving why rates of infertility are rising and not encouraging more donations.

"It is inevitable that women will feel pressured into selling their eggs and there is considerable risk to their health. For those who approve of donating eggs and sperm they should at least promote the idea that it is done altruistically and not for profit."

But Simon Fishel, managing director of CARE Fertility - the largest provider of private fertility treatment, said paying women for eggs works well in Roman Catholic Spain and there was no reason it should not work here.

He said: "For the individual who has no family, the service they are undertaking is one of stress, of many days of injections and a procedure in a hospital to remove the eggs. To rely on altruism alone is a little too much to expect."

The HFEA today launched a public consultation to see if new measures should be brought in to encourage more donors. Other ideas include raising the upper age limit for donors from 35.