Egg Donation

[agzg]

Originally Posted by AlphaFrog

Source on this?


And, no, if you're 18+ and unmarried no one has to sign off.

The implications that women need their husband's permission to do something like this are incredibly troubling to me. I've never heard of men needing their wives' permission to donate sperm. Granted, egg donation is much more intense and requires a lot more work on the part of the donor but still.

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by agzg

The implications that women need their husband's permission to do something like this are incredibly troubling to me. I've never heard of men needing their wives' permission to donate sperm. Granted, egg donation is much more intense and requires a lot more work on the part of the donor but still.

Yep. Like I said, my husband won't have a problem signing. His only contribution to the process is two weeks of abstinence and, like I said in the joint accounts thread, we are an "our money" household so he gets part of the benefit. Well, in actually it will probably be the NY Film Academy that gets the benefit.

[Low C Sharp]

I'm a lawyer, and I'm involved in reproductive rights work. Assisted reproduction is the Wild West as far as the law is concerned. If any state passed a law requiring married women to get their husband's permission (or even notification), the organizations I'm a member of would raise holy hell.

As it is, this would be interesting grounds for a lawsuit even though this is a matter of private contract. But if the government tried to require this? You'd see it invalidated on civil rights grounds in a heartbeat. No competent adult can be required by law to get a relative's permission to undergo a medical procedure.

[AlphaFrog]

^^^Thanks, that's what I thought. I didn't mean to question your knowledge, but if something came up and I decided to make a stink about it, I wouldn't want to say "because some random person on the internet said so". I mean, you're still technically rando person on internet, but at least you now have net-cred.

[agzg]

I'm really surprised. The only thing I can think of is that they don't want the husbands trying to lay claim after-the-fact, but that's odd to me anyway because it implies that you don't have bodily autonomy after marriage.

[AlphaFrog]

I was thinking thst if It was a legal issue and not agency policy, it might fall under the law about babies being born in wedlock legally assumed to be fathered by the husband unless a contrary affidavit is filed. In this case, even though the biological mother is not actually the one giving birth, it MIGHT be argued that the husband of the biological mother could be assumed the legal father. It would be a huge reach, but a really savvy and persuasive lawyer might at least get a hearing on it. Being how emotional this process is for all involved, I'm thinking this may be a safeguard about that even being a possibility.


This whole thing reminds me of Elle debating with Warner in Callahan's class about sperm donor's rights. LOL

[agzg]

Originally Posted by AlphaFrog

I was thinking thst if It was a legal issue and not agency policy, it might fall under the law about babies being born in wedlock legally assumed to be fathered by the husband unless a contrary affidavit is filed. In this case, even though the biological mother is not actually the one giving birth, it MIGHT be argued that the husband of the biological mother could be assumed the legal father. It would be a huge reach, but a really savvy and persuasive lawyer might at least get a hearing on it. Being how emotional this process is for all involved, I'm thinking this may be a safeguard about that even being a possibility.


This whole thing reminds me of Elle debating with Warner in Callahan's class about sperm donor's rights. LOL

I wouldn't think so. Technically, all parental rights would be with the couple/woman giving birth to the child. Biological or not, the legal mother would be the one who gave birth, unless it was a surrogate in which case the surrogacy agreement would spell out who has a legal claim to the child.

[honeychile]

A little trivia (from last month) for those who don't play Ken Jennings' Tuesday Trivia:

The world's largest sperm bank has just announced it will no longer accept donations from men with what easily apparent physical characteristic?

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by honeychile

A little trivia (from last month) for those who don't play Ken Jennings' Tuesday Trivia:

The world's largest sperm bank has just announced it will no longer accept donations from men with what easily apparent physical characteristic?

Red hair. Ka-ching. Good think that doesn't apply to women (or Clariol red).

[Low C Sharp]

No offense taken -- there's no reason you should take my word for it! But you might search your state's code of statutes just to verify that there's no mention of this.

IMHO, the agencies are wildly overstepping their bounds by doing this, but it makes business sense. If a donor changes her mind, it costs them a lot of money. They want to select donors who are easy to deal with, stable, and predictable, not someone who's deceptive or undergoing major life changes. A married egg donor who wants to hide it from her husband -- or donate against his wishes -- is likelier to cause trouble down the road.

[DrPhil]

Would opinions change if this was about spousal consent for tubectomy and vesectomy?

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

Would opinions change if this was about spousal consent for tubectomy and vesectomy?

Nope. There's a difference between a spouse being UPSET and feeling betrayed about those kind of decisions and having a LEGAL say in those decisions.

[agzg]

For me they would not. But I figure you knew that already.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by agzg

For me they would not. But I figure you knew that already.

I didn't know that already. Did I miss a post somewhere?

[pbear19]

This is incredibly improbable, but, I suppose the agency could be freaked about something like this happening: Woman agrees to donate her eggs. Goes through the stim cycle, has a bunch 'o eggs harvested, something goes unrealistically awry and woman dies. Husband still wants to have a child with said woman and only way to do it is to get back those eggs before they are fertilized with some other guy's swimmers.

Chances of that happening? Probably one in a gazillion. But there has been enough weirdo litigation over egg donation/embryo donation/sperm donation/conception after one party's death, etc., that the thought might have occurred to someone.

Not to be morbid!! But, that's the scenario that I thought of when you said your husband had to sign off.

On another note, you are awesome for doing this. We didn't need an egg donor, but I know many women who did, and it is a true blessing that there are women who will act as donors.