Clinic Offers Human Egg as Lottery Prize

(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) - It could be the lottery of a lifetime but a British fertility clinic is under fire for offering a human egg as the grand prize in a raffle, The Daily Mail reported.

Wednesday's drawing will promote London Bridge Center's "baby-profiling" services – while side-stepping British laws governing in vitro fertilization. In addition to the egg, the prize will include a free IVF treatment, which will take place in the United States. The egg and treatment are worth roughly $19,500.

Great Britain bans the sale of eggs for profit. Donors cannot remain anonymous and must allow any offspring to contact them once the child turns 18.

Meantime, critics blasted the lottery for commercializing life.

Josephine Quintavalle of the British think tank Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said, "The capacity of the IVF industry to commodify human life reaches a new low with this latest deplorable initiative.

"Imagine a child one day finding out that he or she came into being thanks to such a blatantly commercial initiative."

Organizers of the raffle hope it will raise awareness of a program by the Genetics & IVF Institute in Fairfax, Va., and the Bridge Center. The drawing will take place in London; the IVF treatment in the United States. The British-American partnership is geared toward women in their 40s and 50s who might have trouble using their own eggs in fertility treatments.

The winner will choose the egg based on childhood pictures of potential donors along with their age, race and education. All donors are college-educated American woman between ages 19-32.

The cost of IVF treatments can vary, depending on a woman age and the number of cycles required. According to the Southern California Center for Reproductive Medicine , the price for one cycle of treatment can start at $10,000. For older women, costs can easily reach six figures.

Mohamed Menabawey, director of the London Bridge, defended the raffle.

"This is how Americans do it – in order to attract people to seminars they offer one free treatment for people to come," he told The Mail .

IVF has been used successfully since 1978.