Throughout the long and acrimonious debate over therapeutic cloning, its opponents have asked “where will the eggs come from?” Eggs are needed to create the clone, but women have to undergo an uncomfortable, sometimes painful and occasionally fatal procedure so that scientists can gather them.

But scientists are handicapped by National Academy of Sciences regulations written in 2005 which bar compensation to prevent exploitation of poor women. Some states, including Massachusetts and California, which are home to some leading stem cell research groups, ban it. Nature reports that bans on payment “are crippling the promising field of ‘therapeutic cloning’ that could produce useful embryonic stem-cell lines for studying various human diseases”.

What about altruistic donation? Harvard University researchers conducted a two-year campaign and spent US$100,000 to inspire women to donate their eggs. The result was less than 10 eggs, and thousands will be needed.

So now American scientists want the sale of eggs for research to be legalised. There is a precedent for this. In the US it is legal for women to sell their eggs to IVF clinics to create embryos. Clinics are paying tens of thousands of dollars for eggs from attractive, intelligent college students.  

In the UK scientists are allowed to obtain eggs from IVF clinics by offering cut-rate fertility treatment in return for donation of some eggs. But the problem with sourcing eggs from IVF clinics is that the women probably have fertility problems. It is now possible to use animal eggs to create human-animal hybrid embyros in the UK. But the scope of these is limited. The upshot of this is almost certain to be a campaign to legalise a market in human eggs. ~ Nature, June 12