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Human Egg Harvesting for Embryo Cloning
FACT SHEET
"As a society we are at a turning point in our relationship to science. We are being asked to make women the servants of biotechnology, rather than insisting on a biotechnology that promotes the well-being of all people."
Diane Beeson, Medical Sociologist
California State University, East Bay
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In the race to clone human embryos to destroy them for their embryonic stem cells, demand has risen for unfertilized eggs.
Using a human embryo cloning procedure known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, scientists remove the 23 chromosomes in the egg's DNA, then replace it with DNA containing the full 46 chromosomes from a donor body cell. The resulting embryo is allowed to grow for several days, and is then destroyed when its embryonic stem cells are harvested for experimentation.
The March 16, 2006 cover story of USA Today had an article entitled Egg Donor Business Booms on Campus.
The article revealed that cash-strapped college girls were being offered cash inducements of thousands of dollars to undergo high dose hormone treatment to hyperovulate 15-20 eggs at a time and then surgical extraction of the eggs for embryo cloning experimentation.
Regardless of one's position on cloning for research, we all should be able to agree that the health of young women must be protected from the known and unknown dangers of being exploited as egg farms for unethical and ineffective science.
Here are some Egg Harvesting Health Facts:
1. Two Stanford medical bioethicists say women who donate eggs for stem-cell research are not being adequately informed of potential health risks, including infertility and death.
Source: Warning Issued for Egg Donors, Palo Alto News (May 27, 2005)
2. "Media coverage of human embryo cloning research has largely focused on its therapeutic potential, neglecting the technology's dependence on the thousands, if not millions, of women who must undergo the substantial health risks associated with harvesting their eggs."
Source: U.S. Senate testimony of pro-choice Judy Norsigian, pro-choice author of Our Bodies, Ourselves for the New Century.
3. The FDA has received over 4000 reports of adverse drug events among women given the drug Lupron to prepare them for the hyperstimulation that enables egg extraction. This includes 325 hospitalizations and 25 deaths... At some later date, when (egg) donors may find themselves suffering from long-range effects of understudied hormone manipulation, they quite possibly will be without health insurance.
Source: Pro-Choice Alliance Against Prop 71
4. "Another speaker at the briefing, Jennifer Lahl of the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, described 34 cases of arterial thrombosis she said have resulted from assisted reproductive technologies entailing ovarian stimulation. Fifteen of the cases involved strokes, three involved heart attacks and two cases were fatal, she said."
Source: Congressional Quarterly Healthbeat News (April 11, 2007)
For more information, go to:
www.handsoffourovaries.com
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