Ethicists raise alarm as mother donates her eggs to daughter

In what is considered a world first, Melanie Boivin has donated her eggs to her daughter, who is sterile because of a genetic condition called Turner's syndrome.

The Montreal lawyer's eggs are to be frozen until her seven-year-old daughter, Flavie, becomes of age to bear a child through in-vitro fertilization.

If she chooses to become pregnant, Flavie will be giving birth to her genetic sister and Ms. Boivin will simultaneously become mother and grandmother.

Some ethicists are calling the scenario a frightening "scrambling" of generations. For Ms. Boivin, however, the donation was an act of love.

"If my child had needed a kidney, I would have given her one and no one would have questioned it. In this case, it's a gamete," Ms. Boivin said yesterday.

When Flavie failed to grow normally, doctors discovered she had a genetic disorder that occurs in about one of 2,000 live births.

Instead of the usual pair of chromosomes, those with Turner's syndrome have an incomplete X chromosome or lack one altogether and are born without eggs. Sterility is a consequence.

Ms. Boivin approached the McGill University Health Centre last year after attending a conference in Ottawa on fertility options for Turner's syndrome.

Seang Lin Tan, director of the McGill Reproductive Centre, who two years ago spearheaded an egg-freezing program for cancer patients, took Ms. Boivin as a patient.

The issue of mother-to-daughter donation is ethically contentious, Dr. Tan conceded.

"I put it up to the ethics committee for special clinical consideration," Dr. Tan said.

"The reality is that by the time (the child) thinks of doing this, say in 20 years from now, society's attitude will be different."

But ethicist Margaret Somerville said reproductive technologies fail to take into account the consent of the unborn child.

"We have to think about what we are doing when we are running around nature," Ms. Somerville said. "Giving birth to your own sister completely screws up the normal transition of life."

University of Toronto philosophy professor and moral scholar Wayne Sumner, however, disagrees.

When it comes to donor gametes, it is "irrelevant" who donates the eggs, Mr. Sumner said.

"I don't see it as all that significant -- the scrambling of generations. I don't have concerns about whether it's natural or normal.

"It's a little odd for (Ms. Boivin), who will have both a child and a grandchild simultaneously, but people wrap their heads around these things."

Fears that reproductive technologies may have harmful consequences for the unborn are legitimate, he said, but there's no evidence on donor eggs, he added.

If the arrangement is something the mother wants and the daughter may welcome one day, then society must have good reasons for blocking the transaction, Mr. Sumner said.

Ms. Boivin said she discussed the financial, psychological and emotional impact on the family -- but most of all, the ethical aspect -- before going ahead. She's had two painful treatments -- hormone injections for six weeks followed by egg extraction -- and expects to do the third and last harvest in summer.

"All I wanted is to give my daughter another option," Ms. Boivin said. "She doesn't have to use the eggs. She can give them to someone else. In no way will I influence her. It will be her choice, with her partner."

Flavie may choose to give birth to her genetic sister, Ms. Boivin said, but as the person who raises and educates the child, she'll be the real mother.