19 January 2016

Egg Donation - Another form of human trafficking?

While we were in Franskraal I decided to buy a Cosmopolitan magazine, (Cosmopolitan, January 2016, volume 32, number 11), for beach reading. One of the articles in the magazine was on how women in South Africa mostly aged between 18 - 25 years old are getting exploited for the eggs. When I read this I was like "Pardon?" 

The article started the same as most of the stories that I've read about people getting exploited. They made a friend who told them about this opportunity. In this situation is was how you as a women could earn some extra money by donating your eggs. This "market" has grown from the increase in couples who can't fall pregnant wanting babies. The increase in safe abortions and people using contraceptives have decreased the number of children up for adoption. When I read this, I was like where are people looking to adopt. There are thousands of children world wide who want forever homes through adoption.

To jump along in the story, you've been told about an amazing opportunity to donate your eggs in Indai for a free holiday, while donating your eggs. The first step of the process is to give you hormones so that you start producing more eggs than the one you naturally produce a month. The second part of the process is where the eggs get removed from you. In situations like this, you are given way to many hormones and produced too many eggs for your body, which has then been extracted from you. This is harmful to your body and illegal. Legally only  certain number of eggs may be donated over a certain number of months and you can't be paid for donating eggs, (can't be paid for human life).

I read this article after I had just finished going through Dressember and reading up on human trafficking. Is this another form of human trafficking? Women are being lured by free luxuriant holidays and the only thing they need to do is donate some eggs. Little do they know they're going to be donating a lot eggs, being exploited to satisfy a demand for something without knowing the dangers of it.  Just a thought...

xKx



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