Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm by Rene Almeling Page A

only these lengthy commutes, but also the need to regulate their sexual activities for such a long period of time.
    EARNING AND SPENDING
    Given that so many donors are motivated by the money, it is important to look closely at what women and men actually earn from paid donation. As noted in Chapter 2 , commercial egg agencies often pay different rates to different donors, with first-timers receiving around $5,000 per cycle, a number that will generally increase for additional cycles or for women with particularly sought-after characteristics. University-based programs usually pay less, sometimes as little as $2,000 per cycle.
    Egg donors reported fees for forty-one cycles that occurred between 1998 and 2006. The fees ranged from $2,000 to $10,000 per cycle with an average payment of $4,297. Of the thirteen women who had donated more than once, five were paid more for additional cycles, five were paid the same, and three were paid less (see Table 3 ). 5 Women in metropolitan areas occasionally donated through multiple programs, which explains some of the variation in compensation (cycles at programs other than those where I did research are italicized in the table).
    In each of the commercial agencies, there was at least one woman whose fee increased, though it was less common at Gametes Inc., where staff does not routinely offer higher fees. In Samantha’s case, Creative Beginnings does generally pay more, but she donated a second time to a couple who did not become pregnant the first time, so this may have prevented staff from asking for a higher fee. Of those whose fees declined, Rosa’s second cycle was cancelled before the egg retrieval, so she was only given a partial fee. Olivia donated through two commercial agencies before signing on with a university program, which paid less per cycle. Gretchen donated to a friend before signing up with University Fertility Services, where she was paid $3,000 less, a difference she thought was “logical,” because “if you know somebody, of course they’re going to pay you more.” She was “disappointed” that the university paid so much less. 6
    Table 3 Compensation per Cycle for Women Donating Multiple Times*

    In most cases, program staffers determine the fee, and egg donors are not always aware of the reasoning involved. For example, Lisa, a twenty-six-year-old, was told by OvaCorp’s donor manager that the “first time around, they usually pay 3,000 [dollars].” So she was surprised when the higher “price” of $4,000 appeared on her first contract in 2002. “For some reason, [the donor manager] asked for more money for me from this first couple. I think it was because I had already had two children and my age. She said I was desirable.” When I asked Lisa what that meant, she responded with a laugh, “Good eggs, I don’t know, good genes.” Likewise, Kim, another OvaCorp donor who was a twenty-three-year-old college graduate, did not know why she was being paid $5,000 for her first cycle but joked, “I’m not going to complain.”
    In two cases, the request for a higher fee came from the donor, and it is worth noting that Jane and Dana ended up with some of the highest fees in the sample. Dana did not make this request until her fifth cycle, when she and the Gametes Inc. donor manager decided to ask for $8,000 from the recipients, who countered with $7,000. The negotiation was ongoing at the time of our interview. Like other egg donors, Dana expressed ambivalence about focusing on the money. “I’ve really felt bad about asking for that much. I didn’t want to feel greedy, but at the same time, as much as you have to go through, not only physically but mentally, and the time you have to take away from your job and your family, you really need to be compensated for it.” 7
    There is much less variation in what men are paid per donation, with most banks offering the same flat rate to all donors. This was set at $50 at the nonprofit Western Sperm Bank and