Women Should Be Leary Of "Egg Sharing"

Proposition 71 passed in California in 2004. It was done to side step President Bush's restrictions on human embryonic research and cloning. The proposition created the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to oversee the funds to be used in the research. The advocates of the proposition failed to specify that they could pay women for their eggs. This apparently has lead to a shortage of eggs for their cloning research. Women need be aware that there are real dangers in donating their eggs, even if they think it is for a good cause.

Egg donation can also be highly morally suspect and one should not be so trusting in researches to act ethically. If the eggs are solely to be used for IVF and there is not an excessive number of fertilized embryos left afterwards, that seems acceptable. Egg donation for cloning research is not morally permissible. Such research kills the embryo, or unborn baby boy or girl if we can avoid the euphemism of embryo. The desire to help a couple or the cause of science can be noble, but wisdom is needed particularly when the unborn can be used for research that will lead to their death.