Eggsploitation Photos & Raves
On Aug. 9, Feminists Choosing Life of New York hosted the New York State premiere of the new documentary film, Eggsploitation at the Little theatre in Rochester, NY. This film, produced by Jennifer Lahl, National Director for the Center for Bioethics and Culture, takes a look inside the multi-billion-dollar infertility industry in the United States. Eggsploitation spotlights the booming business of human eggs, told through the stories of women who became involved and whose lives have been changed forever.
In attendance were over 100 people, both men and women, doctors, professors, college students, lawyers, business professionals, women’s historians, pro-life leaders, researchers and feminists, all wanting to learn about the little known flipside of in-vitro fertilization and the egg harvesting procedure
- Photo Gallery
- Raves for Eggsploitation
- Comments from Samuel Gorovitz
- Q & A with Jennifer Lahl
- Quote from Empire State Stem Cell Committee Member Thomas Berg
Photo Gallery
Click on Photos to Enlarge
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Raves for Eggslpoitation
“Eggsploitation is a compelling and revealing documentary that gives the viewer an up-close look at the flipside of the infertility industry. You will meet women whose lives were changed forever after undergoing the procedure for egg donation. Their disturbing and heart wrenching stories tell a cautionary tale to all women who are considering egg donation for the purpose of in-vitro fertilization or embryonic stem cell research. A must see film for researchers, physicians, professors, college students and feminists.”
-Kelly Vincent-Brunacini, FCLNY President
“Jennifer Lahl, producer of Eggsploitation and the National Director of the Center for Bioethics and Culture, should be at the top of the list for any college or university seeking a dynamic, knowledgeable, compassionate speaker on the topic of human egg donation. She is a champion for women and is on the cutting edge of this explosive issue.”
-Kelly Vincent-Brunacini, FCLNY Preident
Comments from Samuel Gorovitz
“The question addressed by the Stem Cell Board was whether all payments to egg donors
should be prohibited by law. The Board concluded they should not. My own view -
not speaking for the Board - is that so long as there are payments for reproductive
provision of eggs, it is unfair to prohibit limited payments for provision of eggs
for research purposes. That said, I would strongly advise any woman not ever to
provide eggs for financial reasons. I would emphasize the long term risks and the
thoroughly unknown risks, as well as the short-term negatives. I think there can be
a compelling case for egg donation for personal reasons, for example, within a
family. But in general it is a bad idea; I would never encourage anyone to do it.
None of that sustains a compelling case for make it illegal."
-Samuel Gorovitz, Professor Syracuse University, ESSCC member
Q & A with Jennifer Lahl
“What inspired you to become involved with Egg Donation Education?”
JL: “I founded the CBC around the time of the human embryo stem cell debate, which was primarily a debate over the ethics of using surplus leftover embryos from IVF. I started to look into the practice of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and how it was that we have about a half a million frozen embryos in the U.S. alone. Through my investigation and research, I became aware of the egg donation practices and was concerned about what I learned about egg donation, the way the egg donor is treated and exposed to harm and left without anyone advocating on her behalf, especially when things go wrong”
“What can people do legislatively to bring attention to the short and long term health consequences of egg donation?”
JL: “Passing egg donor legislation is not a top priority for most busy state legislators who see more pressing issues facing them today. And with strapped state budgets, legislators are left wondering how they can pay for new organizations which would need to be set up to track and monitor egg donors and do the necessary long-term studies. It will only be when constituents demand a change in practice that legislators may finally move to act to change the status quo. Sadly, the worst thing is that laws change only because young women are harmed. We need to act proactively and educate young women of the dangers. Organizing showings of Eggsploitation is our way to educate women while we wait for the legislative process to work.”
Part II: “Any work to establish a donor database would have to begin at either the state level or the federal level. Ideally, a federal registry would be better, because of the realities that egg donors can and do move around from state-to-state. Any registry, if set-up, would have to be focused on the needs and protections of the egg donors. As with any new legislation, one has to be concerned with unintended consequences, and laws need to be written to truly protect these young women. And it is important to realize, tracking and monitoring egg donors would still mean that women are susceptible to being harmed. Egg donation is not a procedure without risk.”
“Lack of Informed consent as to the short and long term effects of the procedure seems to be of great concern, as expressed by the women egg donors in the film. Have you personally ever seen an informed consent form yourself or have any of the egg donors been able to tell you about what they include?”
JL: “I have not seen one personally. You won't see one on the public web sites of the infertility clinics. One of the egg donors didn't even receive an informed consent form until after she had started with the medication. They say things like "puffiness and swelling". An egg donor who dropped out of the donation program gave me her codes for accessing the non-public portions of the infertility clinic's web sites and I was able to go in and see lots of interesting things that aren't made public.”
“How can you infer that the health problems experienced by these women are a result of the egg donation procedure?”
JL: “First, what we know that there are real risks to the drugs taken and the procedure done to remove eggs from a woman. These risks are well documented in the medical literature, since we have studied infertile women. Eggsploitation makes the point that egg donors have never been studied and that we need to study egg donors because they are a different patient population than infertile women. In Eggsploitation we interview three women who were directly harmed as a result of donating their eggs. Two women did have ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome and one suffered a massive stroke because of the drugs. There is no inference in these immediate negative outcomes.”
“Do you notice outrage among college age women when they see your films or learn of the risk associated with egg donation?”
JL: “I have not seen women outraged as much as I have seen them educated, informed and grateful for the new information. Many I have met are relieved that they have seen this movie as they were either considering donating their eggs for money or they have a friend who was considering it.”
“Have the women you’ve interviewed ever shown an interest in connecting with one another to share experiences?”
JF: “No, they have not told me that they want to meet or connect with other women who have donated their eggs. My sense is their wanting to tell their story is to protect future women from being harmed and experiencing what happened to them. They really are doing an amazing service to educate others and prevent this from happening to other women.”
“What would you say to the children who are conceived through in-vitro fertilization?”
JL: “IVF technologies are relatively new and only now are many of the children created through these technologies growing up and entering adulthood. As it relates to those children who /know /they were created via anonymous egg or sperm donation (many children are not told), I think we need to listen to them and hear from them what they want. I believe IVF is a large social experiment and these children have unwillingly been brought into being in a very new and different way. I do believe they should have rights and access to their genetic parents and their biological medical history.”
“How do you suggest that feminists get the media’s attention on this issue?”
JL: “Well this is a feminist/women’s issue and therefore women need to write and speak about it (and make films on the issue!). The more we raise the issue, the more we have a chance at getting media attention. And thankfully, we live in the age of the internet, where blogs and websites and other social media networks can be helpful in raising awareness on egg donation.”
“Adult stem cell research has yielded promising therapies for many diseases. To date, embryonic stem cell research has yielded none. Is there not a strong profit motive for soliciting egg donations for this fruitless and unethical research, i.e., creating new embryonic stem cell lines from these donated eggs? Is the exploitation of these young women for their stem cells (despite lack of efficacy) done merely to create a bogus "need" for abortion at all embryonic and fetal stages?”
JL: “Science by nature will attract people who are curious and interested in discovery. That is a good thing, however, in the area of embryonic stem cell and human cloning research, not all scientist share the same view of the nature of the early embryo, hence the ethical debate has played out between those who see the human embryo as fully human vs. those who see it as a resource to be used to develop cures and treatments or to better understand disease. Profit motives do come into play here as well because of the issue of bio-patenting. If you can create a new stem cell line, you can own the patent and profit off the use of your discovery. I don't think the current demand for human eggs is bogus, but a real need for those who want to pursue somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) research.”
Quote from Empire State Stem Cell Committee Member Thomas Berg
"Whether it is a question of eggs-for-fertility clinics or eggs-for-research, any concept of “donation” has been long lost. The notion that such payments (in New York State, allowable up to $10,000 for selected egg retrieval volunteers participating in state-funded stem cell research projects) constitute “reimbursement” for “time and burden” is also specious. We are talking about paying women for their eggs—any sane individual can understand that is what is going on here. By any reasonable standard, such quantities of money clearly constitute an undue inducement to act and are clearly unethical. Sadly, this opens up the real possibility for the exploitation of economically challenged women. And the fact that the long-term health consequences of ovarian stimulation and egg harvesting are so little known makes it impossible for such women to given genuine informed consent. In New York, we have only made a bad situation much worse by becoming the first state in the union to allow payments to women who offer their eggs for research purposes."
- Thomas Berg (Member of the Empire State Stem Cell Committee)