John Gonzalez, the founder of ManNotIncluded.com — a United Kingdom-based website that links sperm donors with potential parents — has launched a new venture involving human eggs.
Gonzalez (41) set up the sperm donor site in June 2002 — which has so far resulted in six births — and was soon cast as an unlikely crusader for gay rights because ManNotIncluded.com was aimed at helping lesbians and single women conceive, as well as heterosexual couples.
But it also drew a furious response from family campaigners, some religious groups and ethical medical watchdogs, and Gonzalez was accused of putting mothers and babies at risk of diseases including HIV — accusations he denied.
Now Gonzalez has unveiled a site to help supply eggs, inevitably named WomanNotIncluded.com. His new venture seeks infertile women looking for an egg donor to pay a subscription fee, and then pay extra for each search of the database and the introductions they receive.
Arrangements are then made for the woman to anonymously donate her eggs at a fertility clinic where screening, in-vitro fertilisation and implantation take place, all at extra cost to the recipient.
About 40 donors have signed up, mostly from the UK but also from Italy and France. The donors receive expenses, but in the UK they are not allowed to be paid directly for their eggs under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority regulations.
A spokesperson for the authority said that while recipients were not allowed to pay for eggs, minimal expenses could be paid to donors — such as travel, accommodation and childminding costs. Recipients are also allowed to pay up to £50 a day in ”financial-loss allowance”. — Â