What Should Be Covered in an Egg Donation Contract?

0:00:00.000,0:00:05.000 (text on screen): Ask the Expert 0:00:05.000,0:00:07.000 Fertility Authority. Your Most Trusted Source 0:00:07.000,0:00:10.000 What should be covered in an egg donation contract? 0:00:10.000,0:00:15.000 Attorney Melissa Brisman, Reproductive Possibilities: So, whenever you have an egg donor, in most states laws are established for sperm donation, 0:00:15.000,0:00:22.000 and that’s not the case for egg donation. Most states don’t have laws about egg donors protecting the intended parents 0:00:22.000,0:00:25.000 so that the egg donor doesn’t come back, or protecting their confidentiality. 0:00:25.000,0:00:31.000 So, most of the time, with an egg donor, a contract is really a necessary element of the process. 0:00:31.000,0:00:36.000 One of key things is, when you do a contract, you really would like to have representation on both sides. 0:00:36.000,0:00:41.000 You want an attorney to represent the egg donor and another attorney to represent the recipient parents. 0:00:41.000,0:00:49.000 And if the egg donor doesn’t have counsel and isn’t fully understanding what she’s signing, then it really isn’t an appropriate document for her to be signing. 0:00:49.000,0:00:52.000 And you can address a lot of issues in an egg donation contract. 0:00:52.000,0:00:59.000 You can address confidentiality, what’s gonna happen if something happens down the road to the recipient parent’s child, 0:00:59.000,0:01:05.000 like if there’s an illness and you want to get more information. Will the egg donor be willing to be contacted for that? 0:01:05.000,0:01:10.000 Is there a third-party repository to keep that information so that it stays anonymous? 0:01:10.000,0:01:13.000 What happens if, five years down the line, the egg donor has an illness? 0:01:13.000,0:01:21.000 You make to make sure that that isn’t something you’d be responsible for, even if they can prove that the illness is related to the egg donation. 0:01:21.000,0:01:26.000 Egg donors take on some risk in the process and they need to understand that there is some risk. 0:01:26.000,0:01:34.000 What expenses are going to be reimbursed? What kind of compensation they’re gonna get; whether or not a 1099 is directly going to be sent to them. 0:01:34.000,0:01:40.000 How long it’s gonna take to get their compensation. Like, are they going to get it on the day of their retrieval or will it be two weeks after? 0:01:40.000,0:01:43.000 Are they gonna get lost wages and day care? 0:01:43.000,0:01:49.000 Are they going to have to give updated information if, let’s say, they donate eggs to yet another couple. 0:01:49.000,0:01:55.000 Are all those couples going to know how many times this woman donated her eggs? How many children are out there? 0:01:55.000,0:01:59.000 What are the tax implications? Who’s going to be responsible for the taxes? 0:01:59.000,0:02:02.000 That’s all going to be in your contract. 0:02:02.000,0:02:09.000 You always want to make sure you have an egg donation insurance policy, if, God forbid something happens in the first three months after the egg retrieval. 0:02:09.000,0:02:14.000 Or, immediately after the egg retrieval, that the egg donor’s medical complications are covered. 0:02:14.000,0:02:21.000 Some egg donors want to know: Did you have a child? So, if you give birth, I want to know that you gave birth to a child and I want to know that child’s birth date. 0:02:21.000,0:02:26.000 So that if I have a child around that time, our children don’t marry or our children don’t meet up. 0:02:26.000,0:02:29.000 So, they want to know the sex and the birth date of any children you have. 0:02:29.000,0:02:38.000 A very big question that we ask a lot of the egg donors, too, is, “Do you consent for these embryos to be given to another party in the event that they are left over?” 0:02:38.000,0:02:42.000 That may not have been the donor’s intention to give her eggs to more than just this one family. 0:02:42.000,0:02:47.000 You don’t want to just go to your regular family law attorney, because they probably have no experience in this area, 0:02:47.000,0:02:55.000 and they’re not going to know all the things to put into the contract, and they’re not going to know how to adequately represent the parents’ or the egg donor’s interest. 0:02:55.000,0:02:58.000 So, it’s really important to go to somebody who’s done a number of these. 0:02:58.000,0:03:05.000 And you should ask: “How long have you been in this field? How many egg donor contracts have you done? How many egg donors have you represented? 0:03:05.000,0:03:08.000 Are you a member of any of the reproductive associations?” 0:03:08.000,0:03:16.000 Because your regular, run-of-the-mill family attorney is never going to have seen this, and the contract that they write is not going to adequately protect everyone’s interests. 0:03:16.000,0:03:21.000 (text on screen): Ask the Expert 0:03:21.000,0:03:23.000 Fertility Authority. Your Most Trusted Source