Bravo Leslie, its about time people realised that young women generally have higher education levels than young men.
Society expects all women to run their lives responsibly ie rear children, engage in paid work and balance the household budget. As such I think young women are quite capable of deciding for themselves whether they want to donate eggs.

Yes well done Leslie...
Women should absolutely decide on an individual basis, whether they want to take part in such research or not, and not be bound by the religiosity of some politician.

Billie, grow up you feminazi!
Female educational achievement has less than zero to do with this topic.

It's a moral choice, not an educated one. One could go on about how young men do more with their education once completed than young women due to many & varied factors, or how many women use cleaners & child care services to manage the rearing of children, then go on like they do everything around the house, but that probably wouldn't be fair or correct now would it? It'd just be another irrelevant generalisation like your comments were.

I digress...

Leslie good article, thank you.

Whenever I see the term "bioethical advisor" I look for the catholic church, most times it is there.

I am all for making progress in medical science; I have no real problems with stem cell research when eggs are obtained from IVF left-overs or from dead women, which is already happening.

I don’t know why Leslie writes that the ‘opposers’ of egg donations for stem cell research think that women are irrational and lack the capacity to give informed consent to egg donations.
To even suggest that seems demeaning. It also takes the focus of the real point.

The real point is that the government has been promising or suggesting that cures will be provided for patients by extending embryo cloning. It’s good for the economy.
There is NO evidence of possible cures-not even after years of experiments on animal eggs.
Therefore, women will risk their lives for a technology with unproven benefits!

It is unfair of scientists to ask women for consent without telling them that there is no evidence that there is a need for cloning.
There IS a serious health risk for egg donators, and several women have died because of the process, which is not the case with blood donators.
The health risks for donating blood are far smaller than for donating eggs.

Firstly, women have to be injected (many injections over a week or more) with large doses of hormones to make them produce all these eggs.
Then there is the process of inserting needles into ovaries many times to distract the eggs under sedation as it is a painful process.

Saying that women are seen as not being capable of making decisions on an issue that cannot provide them with enough information is misleading. Women shouldn't have to be placed in that position. Wait until there IS more evidence!

If even ONE woman dies for this, so far, useless research, it's not worth it.

All that scientists can tell us is that some women will get sick and some women will die because of the egg-donation processes.

Look at some articles on the Women’s forum Australia and on BBC before making up your mind about this:
http://www.womensforumaustralia.com/home/index.php
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5323894.stm

Celivia.

You are wrong more people die from Phlebotomy errors (sticking a needle in a vien, to withdraw blood) than OHSS.

Uni of NSW research, announced this month, reports on motor neurones derived from embryonic stem cells.

ALL deaths from OHSS have occurred in INFERTILE women undergoing IVF to stimulate egg production.

It is all about informed consent, women need ALL the facts and then they can make a decision.

NOT half truths and vested interests.

I think it is about time that people accept what they naturally have - or have not.

I was on IVF in the early 80s.

I re thought my reasons. I withdrew.

The bottom line is - you get it - or your don't - live with it.