And this article talks about what they are:

All of these procedures to which the egg provider and surrogate are subjected pose devastating short- and long-term health risks. The short-term risks include ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), characterized by difficulty breathing, excruciating pelvic pain, swelling of the hands and legs, severe abdominal pain and swelling, nausea, vomiting, weight gain, low urine output, and diarrhea. OHSS can be fatal. Other short-term risks are ruptured cysts, ovarian torsion, blood clots, chronic pelvic pain, premature menopause, infection, difficulty breathing, allergic reaction, bleeding, kidney failure, stroke, and even death.

The long-term risks include cancer, especially reproductive—ovarian, breast, or endometrial—cancers, and (in a sad irony) future infertility. Both surrogates and egg providers are typically given Lupron, a drug that is not approved by the FDA for fertility use (it is used to treat men with advanced prostate cancer) to produce the onset of menopause with potentially incapacitating and long-lasting effects. Lupron and Synarel are used off-label and are Category X drugs, meaning that if a woman gets pregnant while taking the drug, the fetus will be harmed. Lupron also puts women at risk for intracranial pressure.

Brittany Maynard, the young woman who killed herself in Oregon after learning she had a terminal brain tumor, was also an egg donor.

This information came to me from a source who wished to remain anonymous, and who, because she was very close to Brittany, knew that Brittany had been an egg donor. My source reached out to me because she was aware of my work exposing the risks, known and unknown, to young women who make the decision to donate—or considerably more often, sell—their eggs, which is what Brittany did. I was contacted because this person was worried that this decision might have played a role in Brittany’s developing a glioblastoma.

To me, these things are tragic, because full information is not out there, women do not make informed choices, and also because the human tendency when you are young and healthy is to say “it won’t happen to me and I don’t care if it does.” This is the same mentality around abortion. Women may hear of possible health risks, mental or physical, but in the short term, they don’t care. Until they do. At which point, it’s too late.

Quick and dirty thoughts on Health Canada approving medical abortion drugs that can be taken up to seven weeks gestation:

• it leaves women very alone (no doctor, no human contact) at their most vulnerable
• the period in which the woman suffers alone is protracted, ie. 48-72 hours
• pro-choicers should be condemned for their hypocrisy, proclaiming this to be “safe.” All drugs are dangerous in their own way and the people who will suffer most on this are the young, teenagers, the ill-informed, who will take and TELL NO ONE
• women died in the trials
• the approval timing smells political to me. What rules did Health Canada follow?

At least doctors don’t have to piece together body parts in dishes after the fact, counting the human remains to ensure they are all out. Alternatively, packing them up and sending them for research. Instead, women will be traumatized by watching this in their toilets.

Here’s a description of a fetus at seven weeks:

If you could see inside your womb, you’d spot eyelid folds partially covering her peepers, which already have some color, as well as the tip of her nose and tiny veins beneath parchment-thin skin. Both hemispheres of your baby’s brain are growing, and her liver is churning out red blood cells until her bone marrow forms and takes over this role. She also has an appendix and a pancreas, which will eventually produce the hormone insulin to aid in digestion. A loop in your baby’s growing intestines is bulging into her umbilical cord, which now has distinct blood vessels to carry oxygen and nutrients to and from her tiny body.

Which looks like the picture below. Yes, still alien-like but developing. What a world. Wanted, unwanted, the substance of the matter at hand never changes.

How I wish I could go to this! Academic research on so many aspects of the Pill, like

“Birth Control, Big Money and Bad Medicine: a Deadly Trifecta for Women’s Health”

“Evidence for effects of hormonal contraception on partner choice and relationship satisfaction”

“The Pill Problem: Nutritional Issues”

and

“Take The Pill. But Don’t Call Me In the Morning”

Check it out and go if you can.