The post below was a comment that I added to a blog post from colleague Pamela Madsen, The Fertility Advocate, entitled The Egg Donation Dilemma – Compensation Vs. Enticement. Her original post can be found on her website, www.thefertilityadvocate.com

Amy Demma 4.19.10: Thanks for writing on such an important topic, Pam. To clarify, according to ASRM Guidelines and consistent with the practices at so many donor egg programs, donors are compensated between $5,000 (where ASRM sets the standard for “appropriate” compensation) and $10,000. Recently we polled the donors registered with Prospective Families (donors set their own compensation at my agency) and were pleased to learn that 70% of the approximately 130 donors registered with our agency are asking comps below $7500.00 (no donor who cycles through PF is comped more than $10.000.00). Also, there seems to be some connection to regional practices around donor comps, as well. Many in-house donor programs in New York City set a flat-comp for all donors at $8,000.00. An in-house program in the south, run by a colleague, comps all their donors at $3500.00.

As I consistently say to clients, colleagues and the media, yes, the extreme compensations are out there (no one denies the findings by Mr. Levine as published by the Hasting Center about the $30,000 Ivy League donors) but there are good clinical practices who pay close attention to donor compensation, clinics where adherence to the ASRM guidelines is the threshold for whether or not a donor candidate will even get through the front door.

This issue of commodification of certain donor characteristics (intellect or rather where she is currently matriculating, physicality, talents e.g.) is a matter about which, I suspect, debate and discussion will continue for as long as we have egg donors, but, today’s Fertility Advocate blog addresses a more fundamental issue, whether compensation should be offered, at all.

Those of us who are genuinely in this business because we feel a tremendous sense of empathy for those who cannot conceive, have to look at this issue realistically. We know from the U.K. and other countries wherein donor compensation is illegal that there is a tremendous void of donor candidates…apparently, altruism is not enough of a motivator to donate. We know that some level of monetary compensation is necessary and we know (we trust) that there are enough safe-guards in place to “screen-out” the donor only interested in the check at the end of the cycle.

Today’s blog also mentions concern that donors (and we all do have to acknowledge that these are very young women) may have a short-term perspective when deciding to donate, that they may be responding to an immediate financial need without regard for the long term ramifications of donating, particularly donating multiple times. At Prospective Families, we want every donor to think about the fact that, given the success rates of egg donations, given that a cycle is, statistically, likely to result in a pregnancy (and if there are high-grade frozen embryos, there is a chance that a next sibling can result from just that one fresh-donation) and given that many of these young women have yet to have their own children…we have an equation likely to yield many genetic half-sibs.

So, your call to action, as always, Pam, is spot-on. Collaborative reproduction is a beautiful (and to a great degree) altruistic partnership that allows for much yearned for babies to be born. I am sitting in my office, looking at my wall of baby photos and thank-you notes from clients, I am thinking about the follow-up e-mails donors who have worked with my staff send, post-cycle, I know we are all doing good work. And for those of us who are “vigilant…in managing the lines between fair compensation and enticement”, my hope is that donors, recipient parents and referring physicians will see clear to agencies committed to best practices, we are out there!