Maybe it's not about the money

Sometimes you read a piece that reeks so much of disingenuousness it stinks to high heaven. Namely the proposal to pay egg and sperm donors up to GBP800 for their donations because there's a 'shortage'.

But the low payment is thought to be behind a shortage in egg and sperm donation which is driving infertile women and men to overseas – often unregulated – clinics, according to research.

If memory serves me correctly sperm and egg donation dropped like a rock when the right of anonymity was stripped from donors around 2005 (ish, I think).

The point is, you can chuck as much cash as you want at the problem, but no one with any brains wants some 'in vitro' fertilised person suddenly turning up on their doorstep twenty years later demanding to see their 'real' parent or the CSA or equivalent demanding payment for same. Family life is complicated enough as it is without having to explain; "It was a sperm / egg donation okay; I was broke at the time." or more comically; "Look who's come to dinner dear, It's one of my ejaculations." to one's startled spouse of the moment.

Sperm and egg donors are going to overseas clinic to donate, not merely because they get paid more, but because outside of the UK's ridiculous rules, their anonymity is better protected. Which only goes to show that one persons 'closure' can be another's can of worms. Maybe that's a more potent reason why so many fewer people in the UK are donating sperm and eggs.