Can sperm and egg donors be paid for their donations?
Paying sperm donors has been the practice over the last several decades and continues, although amounts per donation are minimal. Because of the risk and complexity of the medical procedures regarding egg donation, payments have tended to be higher than that for sperm donation, sometimes in the thousands of dollars. Professional organizations like the American Society of Reproductive Medicine made recommendations limiting the amount of money that should be paid to gamete donors, particularly egg donors. Advertisements for designer gametes, i.e, gametes from persons at Ivy League schools, or persons with high IQ scores or some other highly-valued attribute can be found on the Internet and in many national and college newspapers. These designer gametes are offered at inflated prices, often starting at $50,000 or more. What is surrogacy and what is the resulting legal status of the parties? There are two kinds of surrogacy: traditional and gestational. In a tradition surrogacy, the surrog
