So You Wanna Donate Eggs?

More of what's being said 'out there' (in that world that seems to curiously have no relation to baby-making patients) on the sticky wickets of paying for research-bound eggs and embryos:

Liza Mundy, that lucky gal who gets all the good assignments, has done it again for Mother Jones (July/Aug2006) in Souls on Ice: America's Embryo Glut and the Wasted Promise of Stem Cell Research. Ouch. She covers the gamut here, very readable, highly recommended for all you embryo-creators out there.

Then, Elizabeth Gettelman follows up in the same issue, same mag, with Splitting the Baby: The Public Supports It, So Why No Stem Cell Research? Quick piece that delves a bit more into the games that politicians play to win both your votes and a workaround to embryonic stem cell research.

From Sept 13 LA Times, published just before the new Calif legislation was signed preventing donors of eggs for research from being compensated, describes the confusing mix of advocates in this picture. Should women be protected from exploitation or given every chance to make their own choices? I'm linking to New Battles Lines Are Drawn Over Egg Donation as it's presented on the Bedford Stem Cell Research Foundation website because I'm hoping to reach their quoted director, Ann Kiessling, PhD, for comment.

On that note, I spoke already to Dale Carlson of California Institute for Regenerative Medicine about the hoopla. He clarified that the signed legislation applies to non-CIRM research (they have their own regulations in place,) and he feels "positive about" the situation of donor-egg procurement sans compensation based on some reported research that a majority of IVF egg donors have indicated they'd let their cells go for other reasons, too. Kudos to Dale for referring me to Kiessling and others.

Finally, for now, though not California-specific, National Review Online's editor, Kathryn Jean Lopez has written about Missouri's upcoming attempt to legislate the mess in their state. If you can just get past her statement that "The fact is, cloning by any other name is still cloning...," in the article, The Clone-Me-State: Eggsploitation in Missouri, the rest of the piece is interesting.