NEW document on The Corner House website

"Transforming 'Waste' into 'Resource':
>From Women's Eggs to Economics for Women"
<http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/eggs.pdf>

Researchers around the world are trying to clone human embryos in order to
use them to produce stem cells genetically-matched to a sick patient. But
they need lots of human eggs to do so.[1] Where are they going to get them?
Or rather, from whom?

Extracting eggs is a potentially-fatal procedure for women that can be
hazardous to their health in the short- and long-term. In the UK, eggs for
cloning research have so far come from women undergoing fertility or
gynaecological treatment.

Now, the UK's regulator of embryo research, the Human Fertilisation and
Embryology Authority (HFEA), is considering allowing researchers to ask
healthy women not undergoing such treatment to provide their eggs for
cloning experiments.

The HFEA is relying on the concepts of "informed consent" and "voluntary
choice" to minimise potential harm and risks to women. This presentation
critiques these concepts, suggesting that they may actually undermine
women's rights and interests because they leave out critical important
social, political and scientific questions.

The presentation also describes some of the problems encountered to date
with obtaining women's eggs for in-vitro fertilisation and for cloning
research. It summarises debates on whether women should be paid to undergo
egg extraction or whether they should "gift" their eggs for research.

It concludes that relying on women's altruism to provide eggs could easily
amount to exploitation given the commercial context in which much of the
research is taking place and the economic circumstances in which women find
themselves.

[1] In January, the Seoul National University in Korea concluded that there
was no evidence that Professor Hwang Woo Suk had cloned human embryos or
extracted stem cells genetically matched to sick patients. "The scientific
bases for claiming any success are wholly lacking," its investigation
stated.

Given Hwang's lack of evidence, scientists now have few clues as to how
obtaining patient-specific stem cells might be accomplished -- and doing so
is clearly much more difficult than anticipated. This is despite Hwang's
research team using 2,061 eggs from 129 women -- nearly five times the
number of eggs initially disclosed.


"Transforming 'Waste' into 'Resource':
>From Women's Eggs to Economics for Women"
<http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/eggs.pdf>

or follow the links from the home page  <http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk> 
to 'Documents', and then 'Gender'.




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