Extortion in Canada's egg trade

Canada's system of fake altruistic egg donation sometimes leads to treachery.

I feel I should be honest up front: I agree with the Canadian law that gametes should not be bought and sold. I won't argue that case right now, but I can say that it has to do with not wanting young women to be lured into egg donation by money and not wanting donor conceived people to feel they were somehow trafficked.

That said, I am not fond of the way our law is set out, requiring egg donors to provide receipts, requiring intended parents to collect receipts, and letting unregulated, unscrutinized, legally dubious "agencies" choreograph the whole arrangement. I would prefer the UK system, where egg donors are paid a modest flat fee to cover estimated expenses.

But we have the law we have, and I see no near-term appetite to make it better. So I wish Health Canada would do its job and aggressively regulate this space.

Because as things are, Canada has the worst of all worlds when it comes to egg donation. On the books it is altruistic-only, but in practice it is almost always paid. But because paying is illegal, the whole arrangement becomes shady and deceitful. Intended parents who aren't warned can be caught off-guard.

Below, two Canadian intended parents describe in their own words what happened to them. After that, my take on what is going on.

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