{"id":317742,"date":"2024-08-27T08:48:08","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T13:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=317742"},"modified":"2024-08-26T11:11:23","modified_gmt":"2024-08-26T16:11:23","slug":"women-india-died-egg-harvesting-casualties-fertility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/women-india-died-egg-harvesting-casualties-fertility\/","title":{"rendered":"Women in India have died from egg harvesting, casualties of largely unchecked fertility industry"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Egg donation is being promoted in America and other countries as a way to \u201chelp\u201d infertile couples achieve pregnancy through IVF, IUI, and surrogacy. As this practice has become more common in India over the past 10 years, stories have begun to leak out about its dangers; some women have died after egg retrieval procedures, underage girls have become victims of illegal egg harvesting, and there are even unfortunate signs of a black market. <\/span><\/p>\n

The stories of women who have been abused, exploited, or even killed because of fertility industry practices in India deserve to be told.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What happens during an egg donation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to Egg Donor America, to prepare a donor for egg retrieval, a regimen of injected hormones including follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) is <\/span>administered to promote the growth and maturation of the ova<\/span><\/a> (eggs) within the ovaries. <\/span><\/p>\n

This takes place within one menstrual cycle in the United States, but in India it has been <\/span>reported to take \u201cseveral weeks.\u201d<\/span><\/a> During the retrieval, a needle is inserted through the vaginal wall to \u201caspirate the follicle fluid which contains the eggs.\u201d Side effects outside of general discomfort from the IV and needles include moderate weight gain, mood changes, headaches, torsion of the ovaries, hemorrhage, infection, injury of the bowels, and mild to severe ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome (OHSS); OHSS <\/span>can ultimately lead to blood clots, fluid in the abdomen and lungs, kidney failure, stroke, and death<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

However, as Live Action News has reported, these risks are downplayed and painted over <\/span>with an idyllic and eugenic picture of society<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The hidden deaths of the Indian fertility industry<\/strong><\/p>\n

The current law in India, last updated in 2020, <\/span>requires that all egg donors<\/span><\/a> must be between the ages of 23 and 35 and requires the donor be a woman who has been married and has \u201cat least one alive child of her own (minimum three years of age). The woman can donate eggs only once in her life and not more than seven eggs can be retrieved from her.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Despite this, risks to women still exist.<\/span><\/p>\n

A 23-year-old woman from New Delhi is reported to have died in early 2022 during an egg retrieval procedure. She left behind a husband of seven years and a four-year-old daughter. This woman was undergoing the procedure for IVF purposes and had no known abnormalities in her health history. However, as soon as an egg was removed from her right ovary, her heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation levels all began to drop at an alarming rate. CPR, intubation, medications, and defibrillation were all administered with no success of reviving her, according to the <\/span>medical report published in the National Library of Medicine<\/span><\/a>. In the end, it was determined that this mother died due to severe OHSS \u2014\u00a0a side effect of the fertility drugs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In another case, a 16-year-old girl escaped from a home where she had been forced to undergo an <\/span>egg retrieval procedure eight times over a five-year period<\/span><\/a>. From 2017 to 2022, the girl was held captive by her mother and her mother\u2019s boyfriend who raped her repeatedly throughout this time. It is unclear whether she was forced to donate multiple embryos following the rapes in addition to unfertilized eggs, or embryos only. Her mother was already a regular egg donor. The mother, a friend, and the boyfriend skirted the law by obtaining a false ID for the girl with a false name and birth year. The girl\u2019s captors were finally arrested on June 3, 2022, and the girl was placed in a government-run home, according to The Quint.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n