鈥淲orld鈥檚 first online provider of human eggs is hatched!鈥� This is how the website was launched on Monday, but critics are concerned at the glibness with which such a complex procedure is being sold.
John Gonzalez, an entrepreneur with a prestigious address in Harley Street, London, aims to sell the site on the same strengths as his previous venture, , which he set up in 2002 as a database of sperm donors. This has become a controversial success, attracting the custom of single women and lesbian couples who want children but ttont want a man. Women can order sperm online, have it delivered fresh to their door and use a syringe to inseminate themselves. It has been criticised for making starting a family as easy as ordering the weekly shopping.
The new site will match up infertile women eager to have children with women willing to donate eggs. It is not in fact a world first, as websites offering similar services already exist in the US, but few present the details of the process in quite the same way as Gonzalez. He describes what happens once the egg-seeker has paid a lee of a few hundred pounds to be introduced to a donor: 鈥淢atched eggs are then harvested at a convenient clinic where full screening, IVF and implantation occurs. Simple!鈥�
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Not so simple, in fact. Egg donation, which requires hormone treatment and surgical procedures, is likely to remain tightly regulated. And men who want a baby will continue to need a woman to carry their child.