From harmonious altruism to contradictory feminism: an analysis of the public consultation on financial compensation for egg donation

Abstract

After the revision of the Biotechnology Act in May 2020, egg donation in Norway became a reality. In the wake of the ‘biotechnology agreement’ – a result of the coalition between Ap (the Norwegian Labour party), Frp (the Progress Party) and SV (the Socialist Left Party) to secure a parliamentary majority for changes in the law – the amount of compensation was to be determined for women who wish to donate eggs. A public consultation was therefore held on the guidelines for egg donation, including alternatives for how much the donor should be financially compensated. In this article, I have analysed the consultation draft, the consultation responses and the final guidelines for compensation for egg donation. The purpose of the study was to examine the various arguments in the Norwegian debate about financial compensation for egg donation. Three recurring themes were identified in the consultation documents: the form and content of the motivation, fairness and donor store. A key finding in the consultation was a recurring concern about financially motivated donation. There was also broad agreement that egg donation should be altruistic. Altruism was understood as an absence of financial motivation on the part of the donor, but without other non-altruistic motives being problematised or the prerequisites for altruism being further discussed. The analysis also showed how similar arguments were framed differently in order to support both higher and lower compensation. For example, an emphasis on women's rights in some consultation responses ended up as a defence for the higher compensation proposed, while in other consultation responses it was used as an argument for a ban on any form of compensation. Overall, this study provides insight into the diversity of arguments that have been used in the Norwegian debate on financial compensation for egg donation, and it shows the importance of defining the relevant concepts – such as altruism, voluntariness and financial motivation – in order to better illuminate the agreements and disagreements between the parties in the debate.

Keywords: altruism, biotechnology, oocyte donation, remuneration, motivation