The story of Donor #15

A very interesting read over at Reason.com. A story by Kerry Howley, an associate editor of Reason, of her experience as an egg donor. The article is a bit long but worth the read as it gives a good summary of the history of assisted reproduction and the strangely intimate yet anonymous experience of contracting to donate her eggs to a couple for IVF treatment.

I most often see stories of the recipients of IVF treatment, less frequently stories of donors. Howley describes some of the nuances of a donor's emotions with comments like "Selling ova to another woman is at once impossibly intimate and wholly impersonal". And she describes the process as "...a transaction well suited to the Internet, which tends to provoke uninhibited sharing among strangers cloaked in anonymity."