What genetic material donations are considered taboo, and who gets to decide?

This is the question presented after a Canadian mother has had some of her eggs cryogenically frozen for use by her (now) seven-year-old daughter, who is expected to become infertile before long.  Should the girl decide to use the eggs and gain regulatory approval, she would essentially have a baby that was both her child as well as her half-sibling.

Doctors from the McGill Reproduction Center in Montreal have called this donation an act of motherly love, and I couldn’t agree more.  But critics at a fertility conference in Lyon believe this is deeply concerning.

The girl cannot have children naturally because of a chromosonal condition called Turner’s syndrome.  A semi-rare issue, this occurs in only 1 out of every 2500 female births.  According to Wikipedia, instead of the normal XX sex chromosomes for a female, only one of X chromosome is present and fully functional.  In Turner’s syndrome, female sexual characteristics are present but generally underdeveloped.

Desperate to help, her mother investigated whether she could donate her own eggs.  After much research, she discovered Professor Seang Lin Tan’s team at McGill who runs an egg freezing programme for cancer patients and those who want to delay childbearing.

Personally, I think the mother should be permitted to have these eggs preserved for her daughter.  The final choice whether to use the ovum or not would be at the sole discretion of the daughter, and I don’t see the difference between donating some eggs and donating a kidney.

Parents are genetically wired to do everything possible to provide everything possible to their children.  I know that if my child needed an organ, and I could offer it, there would be no question about me providing it.  Heck, I’d grab a spoon and dig it out of my body if it would speed the process up.  So what’s the ethical issue that critics are presenting?

Apparently it has to do with identity problems.  Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, expressed sympathy with the family but could not support storing the mother’s eggs.  She went on to say:

“The psychological welfare of the baby itself has to be the principal concern.  Such a baby would be a sibling of the birth mother at the same time as the direct genetic offspring of the grandmother doner.

“In psychiatry we are hearing more and more of children suffering from identity problems, and specifically a condition called ‘genealogical bewilderment’.  Could it possibly be more bewildering than this? 

“We have to stop thinking of women only in terms of their reproductive potential.  The daughter could live a full and happy life without having children of her own.”

Hmm … Regardless of the name of this ethics organization, I think Ms. Quintavalle should show me some evidence of why she thinks she has the right to say how someone can live their life.  If a child is “bewildered” by this, it’s because the parents didn’t explain it properly, or did so way before the child was ready to understand such a thing.  Seriously, I can think of some much more pressing ethical questions that should be commented on.

If this unfortunate girl decides to have children in her life, she can make her own decision about whether to use her mother’s eggs, or eggs from some woman she’s never met.  If she doesn’t want to give birth, then there’s always adoption.  Lord knows there are millions of children who could use a better family setting.

This gift of genetic material is no different than a lung or a kidney.  The decision should be made between the donor and receiver.  The rest of us should have no say in the matter.