For Dawn Galloway, the decision to donate her eggs was simple. She could have children, but didn't want them. Someone else did, but couldn't. Why not help? "The way I look at it is that they're just taking something I wasn't going to use anyway," said Galloway, 26, of Belle Vernon. Fertility clinics increasingly are recruiting women in the Pittsburgh region to sell their eggs, even as the ethical, legal and medical guidelines for donations continue to be redefined. Advertisements in college newspapers and on Craigslist.com, a free online classified service, promise young women compensation to pay off student loans. One Craigslist post that linked to Fertility Futures, which has an office in Wheeling, W.Va., promised money for Steelers tickets in exchange for egg donation. It since has been removed from the Web site. Most ads are positioned more altruistically, seeking women who want to "help couples conceive." The procedure offers infertile women the chance to conceive using eggs from younger women. Galloway begins her second donation cycle next month at Reproductive Health Specialists in Murrysville, which paid her $3,500 for her first donation. The average compensation nationally is $4,200, according to the Society of Assisted Reproductive Technology. "I'd be fine with doing it without being paid," said Galloway. "I don't think that people who just want the money should do it." According to the Centers for Disease Control, 5,767 babies nationally were born from donor eggs in 2003, the last year for which statistics were available. But the number of donations probably was much higher, given success rates of 30 to 50 percent. Potential parents choose donors from a clinic or agency database. The information provided varies from the basics -- height, ethnicity, hair color -- to detailed profiles listing SAT scores and hobbies. Fertility Futures offers audio and video of donors. "It's kind of like when you meet someone you're attracted to -- you may have a type, but often that's not what you end up choosing for a life mate," Fertility Futures CEO Stuart Miller explained. "It's the same for couples looking for a donor. It's a very subjective and personal endeavor." The typical donor is college-educated in the humanities or the arts, often with fertility-challenged family members or friends. Galloway, a financial aid processor, is one of a few business majors to donate. "It was a great feeling to give the couple what they'd always wanted," Galloway said. "I'm not the mothering type, and there's people out there who always wanted to have children." The donation process takes about a month. Donors must be nonsmokers ages 21 to 32 -- although age requirements vary between clinics -- with no genetic or infectious diseases. For every hundred applications Fertility Futures receives, only five qualify, Miller said. Potential donors undergo psychological evaluations and complete dozens of pages of paperwork. Once accepted, four out of five typically drop out once they are educated about the process, Miller said. They're scared away by the time commitment -- and the self-injections of hormones to stimulate egg production, twice daily for two weeks. "That was kind of rough," Galloway said. "I got my husband to do it." Despite the genetic contribution, Galloway doesn't consider any resulting babies to be her children. She agrees with the Food and Drug Administration's classification of eggs as tissue. The cost to a recipient couple, including legal fees and donor expenses, is at least $15,000. Donor compensation is legal in the United States, although prohibited in Canada and Britain. The money compensates donors for "their time and effort," said Robin Musiak, executive director of Reproductive Health Specialists, Galloway's chosen clinic. "We're not paying for their eggs." Yet, donors with Ivy League educations or special skills such as musical ability can command up to five figures, raising issues of eugenics, undue inducement and commodification. For these reasons, the Catholic church considers egg donation unacceptable, said spokeswoman Susan Rauscher. "It's an issue of turning eggs into a commodity," Rauscher said. "In the long run, what is being bought is a child." Others argue that selective breeding concerns are naive. "When you see the range of personalities and aptitudes within a natural family, I think that should give people pause before they place a lot of stock in the potential of a particular package of genes coming in a sperm or an egg," said Dr. Robert Brzynski, chairman of the ethics committee for the Society of Assisted Reproductive Technology. The field of assisted reproduction is comparatively unregulated. The FDA's recent classification of eggs as tissue donation solidified guidelines for pre-screening and disease testing, but clinics can operate outside of governmental oversight. For example, one ovary-stimulating medication many clinics use was approved by the FDA for other uses, but not egg donation. "I think we have to weigh the benefits and burdens of regulation," Brzyski said. "One concern is that it opens the door for other legislation related to reproduction, which has been a staunchly protected privacy right, so people think twice about making any laws regarding it." Additional Information:

The procedure

* Patient is put under general anesthetic * A needle is inserted into each ovary follicle to collect eggs * One to two dozen eggs are harvested in about 15 minutes * Some patients return to work the next day Possible side effects: * Mood swings * Water retention * Cramping * Enlarged ovaries, leading to hospitalization and possible ovary removal (rare) Sources: Tribune-Review research, Reproductive Health Specialists, Fertility Futures

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