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The Forum > Article Comments > Rhetoric of choice clouds dangers of harvesting women’s eggs for cloning > Comments

Rhetoric of choice clouds dangers of harvesting women’s eggs for cloning : Comments

By Renate Klein, published 30/11/2006

Women should not be sacrificed to the vested interests of the biotechnology industry.

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Can someone please answer me the following question.

Isn't the procedure for harvesting eggs to which the author of the article refers, the same procedure used for women on the IVF program?

If it is, then I assume that those against harvesting (apparently) for health impact reasons and based on a concern about the quality of consent, also apply those judgements to those on the IVF program.

I also suspect those health impact reasons/reasonings/objections would apply to a range of drugs and treatments which women take for a variety of conditions. If it doesn't then I find it curious.
Posted by lia, Friday, 1 December 2006 12:28:37 AM
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I remember when organ-transplants were first being discussed and exactly the same objection was raised, ie that poor people would be exploited by the rich. This has actually come to fruition with healthy people in poor countries selling their kidneys etc.

I think this shows 2 things: one that the concern is well-founded and 2 that banning the procedure is not the remedy. If we had blanket banned organ donation then none of the organ transplants that have occurred over the last 4 decades would have proceeded and I dont think any reasonable person would want that to be the case.

It is true we have to be on-guard against exploitation of this procedure but it is the exploitation that is the problem not the procedure and so it is the exploitation that should be targeted.
Posted by Rob513264, Friday, 1 December 2006 2:06:09 AM
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Renate I have to say that most young Australian women are educated enough to be able to understand the intricacies of egg gathering and able to make an informed decision about whether they want to put their bodies through it.

I am sure over time the procedure for harvesting eggs will become less invasive and who knows, in a number of generations it might be routine for women's eggs to be harvested at age 18, when they are at their healthiest, for later implantation when the woman is socially set up for parenthood.

Medical science allows us to lessen the effects of what nature dealt us and I have no qualms with using technology to make me a more effective member of society.
Posted by billie, Friday, 1 December 2006 8:13:41 AM
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Elka,
I don’t think feminists such as Germaine Greer or Maureen Dowd can be called stupid, as this only lessens their responsibility for the many discriminatory and maligning remarks they have made about the male gender in the past.

Other feminists such as Leslie Cannold could also think about the number of times they have made maligning or discriminatory remarks about the male gender.

I have read of claims from various feminists regards a range of issues, but I have rarely seen an instance where these claims have been fully verified. In this article a feminist is claiming that women are being placed at significant risk if they donate eggs, but I somehow disbelieve this because the monetary value for human eggs is not that great for doctors to risk the possibility of litigation.

The big problem for feminists is how they can oppose the harvesting of eggs from women, while saying nothing about the harvesting of sperm from men.

I don’t accept the IVF industry as there are so many children who could be adopted, and I don’t accept the harvesting of eggs from women or the harvesting of sperm from men because I don’t like what some of the biotechnology and genetic engineering firms are doing with eggs and sperm after it has been harvested.

The author is an academic feminist who also represents the organisation “Hands Off Our Ovaries”, but this organisation could be called “Hands Off Ovaries and Gonads”.

I might then be interested in supporting such an organisation because it wouldn’t be so gender biased.
Posted by HRS, Friday, 1 December 2006 11:30:17 AM
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Billie, you write, "Renate I have to say that most young Australian women are educated enough to be able to understand the intricacies of egg gathering..."

They may be educated enough, but one must ask, to what standard of social and moral education have they been educated?

Indeed they have been educated, but are they intelligent enough to make self-informed decisions?

I recall reading an article where some young women were dropping out of (Sydney?) university - making educated informed decisions - and joining the ranks of high class Sydney prostitutes.

As some have pointed out above, despite education, some women continue to make misinformed decisions determined by need and circumstance, or corruption and coercion due to moral ineptitude.

It's not as black and white as some, like Cannold, would have us believe.

If educated women are open to abuse through beckoning calls of wealth through prostitution, then why not egg donation?

It's a good debate. There's no answer. It's the ongoing debacle of feminist-Marxist liberalism vs patriarchal-conservative moralism.

If I had a daughter, I know whose side I'd be on. And am anyway.
Posted by Maximus, Friday, 1 December 2006 5:18:45 PM
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Maximus,
I don’t think there would be much choice under a Marxist-feminist system. Most Marxist systems have offered very little choice. Either you do as you are told, or you would receive a machine gun bullet.

Under a feminist system, I would think that either you do as you are told, or they would get some gullible and easily lead male to shoot you with a machine gun bullet

There are now feminists who are opposing the harvesting of female eggs, but I somehow doubt that there is much physical risk to a woman when harvesting eggs. The risk of litigation is too great for doctors to perform an unsafe operation.

But the secret of why so few feminists have not previously opposed the harvesting of male sperm, is of course that many feminists want male sperm so that single women or lesbian women can have babies through IVF, without the need for a husband or without the need of having a father to the children.

So now feminists can’t fully oppose the harvesting of male sperm, because the harvesting of male sperm is very much a part of the philosophy of many feminists.
Posted by HRS, Saturday, 2 December 2006 1:59:46 PM
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