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對於生育的渴望，讓人們走上纏繞著金錢、法規、倫理與人性的旅程。《生命訂製時代：捐卵、代孕、身世告知，全球人工生殖產業鏈下的臺灣》一書作者群與《報導者》團隊自2023年起，從捐卵、代孕、身世告知3個面向，跨國追蹤、描繪「第三方生殖」這個牽動倫理、法律與人性的時代現象，身處其中的台灣人所站在的位置與遭遇，以及由此衍生的道德困境，希望讓受制度影響的人表達其多元歧異的聲音，並與讀者一同探究人類演化至今最複雜、交織生物學與社會學的「生之難題」。

The desire to have children sends people onto a journey entwined with money, regulation, ethics, and human nature. In The Age of Custom-Made Life: Egg Donation, Surrogacy, Disclosure of Origins, and Taiwan in the Global Assisted Reproduction Industry Chain, its authors and The Reporter team have, since 2023, traced across borders three dimensions of third-party reproduction: egg donation, surrogacy, and the disclosure of origins. They map this contemporary phenomenon, one that implicates ethics, law, and human nature; the position occupied by Taiwanese people within it and the situations they encounter; and the moral dilemmas that arise from it. Their hope is to let those affected by these systems give voice to their many and divergent experiences, and, together with readers, to examine what may be the most complex problem of life in human evolution to date, where biology and sociology are knotted together.

本文為《生命訂製時代》部分章節書摘，經春山出版授權刊登。

This article is excerpted from sections of The Age of Custom-Made Life and is published with permission from SpringHill Publishing.

「中國週期需求：地點北京，營養金1萬美元，女孩年齡28歲以下、O型、國立大學理科科系畢業、身高163公分以上、近期進週。符合條件有興趣的女孩，歡迎加WeChat填寫報名表。」

"China cycle demand: location Beijing; nutritional compensation US$10,000; female, under 28, type O blood, graduate of a science department at a national university, height 163 centimeters or above, entering cycle soon. Girls who meet the conditions and are interested are welcome to add us on WeChat and fill out the registration form."

女孩們搭著「小黑車」，到隱蔽民宅、工業區的地下實驗室取卵，有些甚至沒有施打麻醉。更令人意外的是，赴中借精人工生殖的女同志，雖然是產業中的「客戶」，仍面臨與捐卵者如出一轍的手術過程與風險。我們訪談捐卵者與女同志家庭，藉著她們的眼睛，窺見中國地下生殖產業的「生」機與暗角。

The girls ride in "black cars" to hidden private homes and underground laboratories in industrial zones to have their eggs retrieved; some are not even given anesthesia. More unexpected still, lesbian women who go to China for donor-sperm assisted reproduction, though they are "clients" in the industry, face surgical procedures and risks much like those borne by egg donors. Through interviews with egg donors and lesbian families, we look through their eyes into the vitality, and the dark corners, of China's underground reproduction industry.

2025年初，我們與剛結束烏克蘭捐卵週期的小雅（化名）約在北市一處咖啡廳碰面。

In early 2025, we met Xiaoya, a pseudonym, at a cafe in Taipei shortly after she had completed an egg-donation cycle in Ukraine.

28歲的小雅不久前才在一個300多人的跨國捐卵LINE群組中，張貼出十幾張與仲介的對話截圖，不愉快的合作經驗引起捐卵女孩們熱烈討論，也吸引我們注意。殊不知，小雅「勇闖天涯」的經歷遠超乎我們想像，從2022年起，她陸續捐了5、6次卵，橫跨烏克蘭、美國、中國廣州、上海，每次營養金約在8,000到1萬2,000美元（約新台幣25萬到38萬元）之間。

Xiaoya, twenty-eight, had recently posted more than a dozen screenshots of her conversations with an intermediary in a LINE group of more than three hundred cross-border egg donors. Her unpleasant experience working with the intermediary prompted lively discussion among the donor girls, and caught our attention as well. We had no idea that Xiaoya's experience of "braving the world" far exceeded what we had imagined. Since 2022, she had donated eggs five or six times, in Ukraine, the United States, Guangzhou and Shanghai in China. Each time, the nutritional compensation was roughly US$8,000 to US$12,000, about NT$250,000 to NT$380,000.

中國是小雅去過最多次的捐卵地點。小雅解釋，中國週期多半是「新鮮配對」──準父母從仲介搜羅的履歷中，只挑選一位捐卵者配合療程。我們觀察群組訊息，仲介徵求中國捐卵者的貼文中，營養金普遍在1萬美元左右，也有不少週期開放由捐卵者開價討論；有女孩透露，曾拿過人民幣20萬元（約新台幣92萬元）高價。小雅說，若只拿到3,000到5,000美元（約新台幣9萬至15萬元），很可能是「盲捐」，也就是準父母預算偏低，不太能挑選捐卵者條件。

China is the place where Xiaoya has donated eggs most often. She explained that China cycles are mostly "fresh matches": prospective parents choose just one donor from the resumes gathered by intermediaries to cooperate with the treatment. Observing the group messages, we found that in posts soliciting donors for China, intermediaries generally offered around US$10,000 in nutritional compensation, and many cycles were open to donors naming a price for discussion. One girl revealed that she had once received a high fee of RMB 200,000, about NT$920,000. Xiaoya said that if one receives only US$3,000 to US$5,000, about NT$90,000 to NT$150,000, it is very likely a "blind donation," meaning the prospective parents have a relatively low budget and cannot really choose among donors by condition.

中國週期在捐卵女孩間則評價兩極。

Among egg-donor girls, China cycles are viewed in sharply divided terms.

許多女孩認為，中國週期吸引人的關鍵在於航程短、語言相通、飲食習慣相近，物價便宜，還有人趁療程空檔報名美甲、瑜珈、手作等進修課程。但另一方面，也不少人吃過悶虧。群組中一名捐卵者分享，她的友人取出27顆卵子後，才被仲介突然告知「基礎要30顆」，因此被扣減了3萬人民幣（約新台幣13萬元）營養金；也有捐卵者說，自己已飛到北京、連續打了5天排卵針，卻突然被取消週期。而最讓有意嘗試中國捐卵的女孩們猶豫的，是傳聞中的「小黑車」與「地下實驗室」。

Many girls believe the appeal of China cycles lies in the short flight, a shared language, similar eating habits, and low prices; some even sign up for nail art, yoga, handicrafts, or other courses during breaks in treatment. On the other hand, no small number have suffered losses in silence. One donor in the group shared that after her friend had twenty-seven eggs retrieved, the intermediary suddenly informed her that "the baseline is thirty," and deducted RMB 30,000, about NT$130,000, from her nutritional compensation. Another donor said she had already flown to Beijing and taken ovulation injections for five consecutive days when her cycle was abruptly canceled. What most gives pause to girls considering egg donation in China are the rumored "black cars" and "underground laboratories."

小雅出發前甚至旁敲側擊詢問會替跨國捐卵者做檢查的台灣生殖診所，「我想說，如果真的很多女生出事、失聯，台灣合作的診所不可能完全沒聽過。」但這難以完全消除小雅的擔憂，她最後點頭同意仲介提出的「取卵僅實施半身麻醉」，雖然「超級痛」，但至少能清楚手術過程。

Before leaving, Xiaoya even sounded out a Taiwanese fertility clinic that performs examinations for cross-border egg donors. "I thought, if a lot of girls had really had accidents or gone missing, there was no way the Taiwanese partner clinics would never have heard of it." But this could not entirely dispel her anxiety. In the end, she nodded to the intermediary's proposal that the retrieval be performed with only lower-body anesthesia. It was "super painful," but at least she could clearly follow the surgical process.

根據小雅經驗，中國週期為期約兩週，回診在一般診所，僅取卵手術要到「實驗室」。取卵當天，會搭乘貼上深色遮光簾的商務「小黑車」，捐卵者完全看不到外頭景色，也不知道會被載去哪裡，「車子直接抵達地下停車場，看不到建築物外觀。」在上海的週期中，她甚至被要求不能攜帶手機，即使帶了，也必須留在車上或交給隨行人員保管；廣州週期則更嚴謹，隨行人員會拿金屬探測器檢查女孩身上是否藏有電子設備。

According to Xiaoya's experience, a China cycle lasts about two weeks. Follow-up visits take place at ordinary clinics; only the egg-retrieval operation is done at the "laboratory." On retrieval day, the donor rides in a business van, a "black car" fitted with dark blackout curtains. The donor cannot see the scenery outside at all and does not know where she is being taken. "The car drives straight into an underground parking lot; you can't see the outside of the building." During her Shanghai cycle, she was even told she could not bring a mobile phone. If she did bring one, it had to be left in the car or handed over to the accompanying staff. The Guangzhou cycle was stricter still: staff accompanying the girls used metal detectors to check whether they had concealed any electronic devices on their bodies.

除了療程本身，準父母各式各樣的「面試」要求，也是群組中的常見話題。有女孩經歷過3、4組家庭面試，才終於確定一個捐卵週期；也有人被要求「揉鼻子」證明沒整形；有具備高學歷優勢的捐卵者，被家長用英文面試、要求現場寫微積分考卷；小雅則遇過準家長堅持「見字如人」，要求她視訊寫字，有家庭還會直接詢問政治立場。

Beyond the treatment itself, the various "interview" demands made by prospective parents are also a common topic in the group. Some girls go through interviews with three or four families before finally confirming an egg-donation cycle. Some are asked to "rub their noses" to prove they have not had cosmetic surgery. Donors with the advantage of elite academic credentials have been interviewed in English by parents and asked to write out calculus exam answers on the spot. Xiaoya once encountered prospective parents who insisted that "handwriting reveals the person" and asked her to write during a video call. Some families ask directly about political views.

我們的疑惑是，即便中國捐卵違法，但潛在捐卵者眾多，也不像赴美捐卵面臨簽證限制，準家長為何仍願意額外負擔跨境交通與仲介成本，尋找台灣捐卵者？

Our question was this: even if egg donation is illegal in China, the pool of potential donors there is large, and unlike donation in the United States, it is not constrained by visas. Why, then, are prospective parents still willing to shoulder additional cross-border travel and brokerage costs to find Taiwanese egg donors?

其次，中國不允許卵子買賣，多數女性仍將捐卵視為違法又傷身。況且中國準家長對捐卵者的背景審查極嚴格，從視訊、面談確認外貌與身高，到透過 「學信網」查核捐卵者學歷、動用關係調查身家，甚至留下其頭髮、指甲等DNA樣本備查，幾無隱私可言的捐贈過程，削弱「優質潛在捐卵人」的意願。

For one thing, China does not permit the buying and selling of eggs, and most women still see egg donation as both illegal and physically harmful. Moreover, Chinese prospective parents subject donors to extremely strict background checks, from video calls and interviews to confirm appearance and height, to verifying education through the CHSI academic-credential system, using connections to investigate family background, and even retaining hair, fingernail, and other DNA samples for future reference. A donation process in which almost no privacy remains weakens the willingness of "high-quality potential donors" to participate.

矛盾的是，許多中國準家長又對本土捐卵者存在偏見，將自願者與較低社經條件掛鉤 。而台灣女性常被投射條件較優的印象，加上對捐卵的態度較開放，讓家長較願意額外投入一些跨境召募成本。

Paradoxically, many Chinese prospective parents also harbor biases against local donors, associating volunteers with lower socioeconomic status. Taiwanese women are often projected as having superior conditions, and because they are perceived as more open toward egg donation, parents are more willing to invest some additional cost in cross-border recruitment.

部分仲介積極召募台灣捐卵者，帶著風險控管的算計。萬一過程出現糾紛，或孩子的健康不如預期，供需雙方受限距離與司法管轄權，幾乎無法找到彼此，只得吞下後果，更無法追訴隱身其後的仲介。

Some intermediaries actively recruit Taiwanese egg donors as a matter of calculated risk control. Should a dispute arise during the process, or should the child's health fall short of expectations, distance and jurisdictional limits mean that suppliers and demanders can scarcely find each other. They can only swallow the consequences, and they cannot pursue the intermediaries hiding behind the arrangement.

Anna也指出，「傳宗接代」仍是多數中國準家長尋找捐卵者的核心動機，其次是男同志伴侶的生育需求。無論捐卵者來自哪個國家，年輕漂亮、取卵數多，是家長的首要期待；經濟寬裕者，才會進一步要求高學歷或亮眼背景。

Anna also pointed out that "carrying on the family line" remains the core motive for most Chinese prospective parents seeking egg donors, followed by the childbearing needs of gay male couples. No matter which country the donor comes from, youth, beauty, and a high egg yield are parents' primary expectations. Only those with more ample means go further, requiring elite education or an impressive background.

讓我們訝異的是，即便是付錢的「客戶」，也沒有比較安全。到中國尋求人工生殖的女同志伴侶，和捐卵者一樣搭上小黑車，進了地下實驗室。

What surprised us was that even paying "clients" were not necessarily safer. Lesbian couples seeking assisted reproduction in China, like egg donors, ride in black cars and enter underground laboratories.

2022年3月，Jamie（化名）躺上診療椅，準備接受取卵手術。在此之前，她與幾名女性搭上窗簾緊閉的七人座保母車，花了快一小時來到這裡。由於不能帶手機，她不知道自己身在何處。

In March 2022, Jamie, a pseudonym, lay down on a treatment chair, ready to undergo egg retrieval. Before that, she and several other women had climbed into a seven-seater van with its curtains tightly drawn and spent nearly an hour getting there. Because she could not bring her phone, she did not know where she was.

一行人分別被帶進長廊上的小房間，房內只有一張診療床、一台儀器。一名身著手術服，只露出眼睛的女性，將長長的取卵針扎進她的身體，探向卵巢。「他們（業者）極力說服我不要麻醉，說不會太痛，但我當下痛到想在地上滾。靠，怎麼那麼痛啊？」Jamie緊捏工作人員遞來的布偶忍痛，同時聽到隔壁傳來其他女性的呼痛聲。

The group was taken separately into small rooms along a long corridor. Each room contained only a treatment bed and a machine. A woman in surgical clothing, with only her eyes exposed, pushed a long egg-retrieval needle into Jamie's body and toward her ovaries. "They, the operators, tried hard to persuade me not to have anesthesia, saying it wouldn't hurt too much. But at that moment it hurt so badly I wanted to roll on the floor. Fuck, why did it hurt that much?" Jamie clenched a stuffed toy handed to her by a staff member and endured the pain, while hearing other women cry out from the room next door.

Jamie與太太Clara（化名）都從事醫療產業，決定要有孩子時，已年近40。Jamie上網搜尋「海外人工生殖」，加入中國仲介的微信，對方開出6萬6,000人民幣（約新台幣30萬元）的借精人工生殖價碼；她們另加價4萬人民幣（約新台幣18萬4,000元）挑選烏克蘭與德國混血捐精者。這費用遠低於日本、美國純療程的新台幣60萬到100萬元。

Jamie and her wife Clara, also a pseudonym, both work in the medical industry. By the time they decided to have a child, they were approaching forty. Jamie searched online for "overseas assisted reproduction" and added a Chinese intermediary on WeChat. The other side quoted RMB 66,000, about NT$300,000, for donor-sperm assisted reproduction. They paid an additional RMB 40,000, about NT$184,000, to choose a sperm donor of mixed Ukrainian and German ancestry. The cost was far lower than the NT$600,000 to NT$1 million charged for treatment alone in Japan or the United States.

與她們對接的，是武漢某間健康諮詢服務公司。「業者沒明講，但我們心照不宣這是地下化，畢竟我們都知道哪裡合法、哪裡不合法，」Clara說。

The party handling them was a health consulting services company in Wuhan. "The operator didn't say it outright, but we understood tacitly that this was underground. After all, we all knew where it was legal and where it wasn't," Clara said.

考量預算與緊迫的生育時間壓力，兩人決定先行動再說。她們是「A卵B生」，由Jamie取卵，Clara懷孕，Jamie率先抵達武漢與業者簽約，辦公室位在鬧區，與一般公司行號無異，簡介手冊寫著，公司與中國50多家公、私立醫療院所合作，包含最高等級的「三甲醫院」，也可轉介至泰國權威醫院就診。合約條文還載明，若療程中發生爭議，適用中華人民共和國法律。

Considering their budget and the pressure of a tightening fertility timeline, the two decided to act first and think later. Their arrangement was "A's eggs, B carries": Jamie would provide the eggs, Clara would become pregnant. Jamie arrived in Wuhan first and signed a contract with the operator. The office was in a busy commercial district and looked no different from an ordinary company. Its brochure said the company cooperated with more than fifty public and private medical institutions in China, including top-tier Grade III Class A hospitals, and could also refer clients to authoritative hospitals in Thailand. The contract further stipulated that if disputes arose during treatment, the law of the People's Republic of China would apply.

簽約後，業者拉了12人的微信群組，裡頭有司機、有對接醫療與用藥事項的助理，有一名如同小組長般的顧問。兩名「接待人員」帶Jamie到一間中型醫院做檢查，從抽血到照卵巢超音波，全程宛如走綠色通道般暢行無阻。不曾出示任何證件的Jamie，如醫療系統裡的隱形人。

After the contract was signed, the operator created a twelve-person WeChat group. It included drivers, assistants who handled medical and medication matters, and a consultant who functioned like a team leader. Two "reception staff" took Jamie to a mid-sized hospital for examinations. From blood draw to ovarian ultrasound, the entire process moved as smoothly as if she were on a green channel. Jamie, who never once showed any identification, was an invisible person in the medical system.

正是因為前期檢查都在正規醫院進行，取卵日的遭遇，讓Jamie感到極大反差。她取卵隔天就飛回台灣，結果下腹非常不舒服。「我騎機車去急診，一手催油門，一手抱肚子，醫師說是卵巢過度刺激。」

Precisely because the preliminary examinations had all been conducted in regular hospitals, what happened on retrieval day struck Jamie as a stark reversal. The day after her egg retrieval, she flew back to Taiwan, only to find her lower abdomen extremely uncomfortable. "I rode a scooter to the emergency room, one hand on the throttle and one hand holding my belly. The doctor said it was ovarian hyperstimulation."

隔月，Clara前往武漢植入胚胎。她只感覺保母車一路下坡、上坡，聽到雞叫、鳥叫，感覺去到荒郊野外，最終，她抵達與Jamie相同的地下實驗室。即便清楚會經歷什麼，「這地下化程度，還是讓人害怕。」

The next month, Clara went to Wuhan for embryo transfer. She felt only that the van went downhill and uphill, heard chickens crowing and birds calling, and sensed that they had gone out into the wilderness. In the end, she arrived at the same underground laboratory as Jamie. Even knowing clearly what she would experience, "the degree to which it was underground was still frightening."

想要孩子的願望大過恐懼，Clara三度到武漢植入胚胎，其中一次著床，女兒已經2歲，療程以及所有旅費、雜支，共花費新台幣100萬元。

The wish for a child outweighed fear. Clara went to Wuhan three times for embryo transfers. One implantation succeeded, and their daughter is now two years old. The treatment, together with all travel expenses and miscellaneous costs, came to NT$1 million.

同樣是武漢，從事金融業的女同志Ella，看見中國地下人工生殖產業的另番光景。

Also in Wuhan, Ella, a lesbian woman working in finance, saw another face of China's underground assisted-reproduction industry.

2020年在北京工作時，Ella與太太Jenny（兩人皆化名）透過台商朋友得知武漢的人工生殖管道，朋友還替她倆找了捐精者。當時COVID-19疫情嚴峻，沒人知道何時能恢復旅遊，已接近適育年齡尾巴的兩人，打消去美國求子的念頭，飛往疫情核心。

In 2020, while working in Beijing, Ella and her wife Jenny, both pseudonyms, learned through a Taiwanese business friend of an assisted-reproduction channel in Wuhan. The friend also found a sperm donor for them. At the time, the COVID-19 pandemic was severe, and no one knew when travel would resume. The two, already nearing the end of their reproductive years, gave up on going to the United States to seek a child and flew instead to the epicenter of the pandemic.

取卵前的身體檢查，位在某中醫診所的隱密診間，進門前需沒收所有電子產品。門一開，裡頭門庭若市，一眾婦女排隊做身體檢查，受檢後連褲子都來不及穿妥，下一位就要拉開布簾進來，「人就像流水線上的一塊肉，」Ella說。

The physical examination before egg retrieval took place in a hidden consultation room inside a Chinese medicine clinic. All electronic devices had to be confiscated before entering. Once the door opened, the place was bustling. A crowd of women lined up for examinations, and after one had been examined, before she even had time to pull her trousers on properly, the next would be pulling open the curtain to come in. "A person was like a piece of meat on an assembly line," Ella said.

Ella推測，診間裡大學生模樣的女性是來捐卵，「我們問診所負責人，為什麼會選在武漢做這行？他說，武漢是全世界大學最密集的城市之一，有很多年輕的精子跟卵子。」

Ella guessed that the women in the room who looked like university students had come to donate eggs. "We asked the person in charge of the clinic why they had chosen to do this business in Wuhan. He said Wuhan is one of the cities in the world with the highest concentration of universities, with lots of young sperm and eggs."

診間另一群黝黑瘦小，臉上皺紋滿布的女性，引起Ella好奇。「帶我們檢查的人說，這些婦女是來代孕的，條件是要生育過、年齡32歲以下。我說她們（年齡）看起來不像，對方說，這些人都從山裡來，太陽曬得多，比較顯老。」

Another group in the consultation room, dark, slight women with faces full of wrinkles, stirred Ella's curiosity. "The person who took us for the examination said these women were there to be surrogates, and the conditions were that they had to have given birth before and be under thirty-two. I said they didn't look that age. The other person said they all came from the mountains, got more sun, and looked older."

「我們應該是這群人中，少數要自己懷孕的。」Ella與Jenny都想取卵做胚胎，而業者在身體檢查階段，就試圖說服她們無麻取卵，「我說不打麻醉不行，直到取卵前一天，對方終於老實承認他們沒有麻醉醫師，硬要麻，可能會出事。」

"We were probably among the few people in that group who intended to carry the pregnancy ourselves." Both Ella and Jenny wanted to retrieve eggs to make embryos, and at the examination stage the operator was already trying to persuade them to undergo retrieval without anesthesia. "I said there was no way I could do it without anesthesia. It wasn't until the day before retrieval that they finally admitted honestly that they had no anesthesiologist, and that if they forced anesthesia, something might go wrong."

取卵日，天還沒亮，Ella依指示在某路口等待，司機將她接到集合點，收走她的手機，給她一個眼罩，要她與其他業者載來的女性換乘黑頭車。 「之前沒人告訴我有這段，我嚇到不行，以為要被賣掉。」

On retrieval day, before dawn, Ella waited at an intersection as instructed. A driver picked her up and took her to a rendezvous point, took away her phone, gave her an eye mask, and told her to switch with other women brought by the operators into a black sedan. "No one had told me before that this part would happen. I was terrified and thought I was going to be sold."

40、50分鐘後，車速慢下，Ella偷偷掀開眼罩，發現她們來到一處工業園區般的地方。車在某建築旁停妥，鐵門緩緩上升，裡頭透出暖黃燈光，木地板、舒適沙發，竟是氣氛溫馨的「診所」。

Forty or fifty minutes later, the car slowed. Ella secretly lifted her eye mask and discovered they had come to a place that looked like an industrial park. The car stopped beside a building, an iron gate slowly rose, and warm yellow light shone from within. With wooden floors and comfortable sofas, it turned out to be a "clinic" with a cozy atmosphere.

「醫師」給的兩顆麻醉塞劑，絲毫沒有緩解取卵的痛苦。換Jenny去取卵時，有多囊性卵巢體質的她，一次取出20、30顆卵，一下診療床，就因疼痛與極度緊張當場嘔吐。

The two anesthetic suppositories the "doctor" gave her did nothing to ease the agony of egg retrieval. When it was Jenny's turn, her polycystic-ovary constitution meant that twenty or thirty eggs were retrieved at once. As soon as she got off the treatment bed, she vomited on the spot from pain and extreme nervousness.

Ella取的卵未成功培養成胚胎，「後來負責人傳訊息給我，說因為疫情關係，他們海外的醫師都回來了，現在有麻醉醫師，要再做一次嗎？我說謝謝，真的不要了。」

The eggs retrieved from Ella did not successfully develop into embryos. "Later, the person in charge messaged me, saying that because of the pandemic, their overseas doctors had all come back, and now they had an anesthesiologist. Did I want to do it again? I said thank you, but truly, no."

2021年，中國嚴查地下代孕，「因為我們還有胚胎凍在那，我問負責人，這會不會影響到你們的業務？他說：『其他人我不知道，但我這邊肯定不會，武漢這邊監管政府的人，都是我的客人，他們的需求很大，不會動我。』」

In 2021, China cracked down heavily on underground surrogacy. "Because we still had embryos frozen there, I asked the person in charge whether this would affect their business. He said: 'I don't know about other people, but it definitely won't affect me. The government regulators in Wuhan are all my clients. They have huge demand and won't touch me.'"

Jenny的卵子，如今讓兩人有了4歲、1歲的女兒，療程加上3次胚胎植入，花費約新台幣100萬。一家四口日子幸福，但回想求子過程，Ella仍感到不安。

Jenny's eggs have now given the two of them daughters aged four and one. The treatment, plus three embryo transfers, cost about NT$1 million. The family of four lives happily, but when Ella thinks back on the process of seeking children, she still feels uneasy.

「我們連合約都沒有，整個醫療過程，沒人知道我們的本名。」Ella說，「只能說我們很幸運，如果中間任何一個環節出錯，其實一點保障也沒有。」

"We didn't even have a contract. In the entire medical process, no one knew our real names," Ella said. "All we can say is that we were lucky. If anything had gone wrong at any stage, we would actually have had no protection at all."

中國人工生殖黑市，已成為風險密布卻需求殷切的地下醫療帝國。我們採訪發現，業者以「醫療諮詢公司」、「醫療科技公司」等名義，或在熱門的同志直播平台、X（前身為Twitter）招攬客戶。若需他人生殖細胞，就由仲介媒合「精哥」、「卵妹」。取卵、培養胚胎、植入準家長或代理孕母的子宮，在地下實驗室一氣呵成。即便這類灰色產業屢遭檢舉查緝、接連被國內外媒體揭發，但從北上廣、青島、安徽到長沙，依舊春風吹又生。

China's black market in assisted reproduction has become an underground medical empire, dense with risk and urgent with demand. Our reporting found that operators solicit clients under names such as "medical consulting company" or "medical technology company," or through popular gay livestreaming platforms and X, formerly Twitter. When someone else's reproductive cells are needed, intermediaries match clients with "sperm brothers" and "egg girls." Egg retrieval, embryo culture, and implantation into the womb of the prospective parent or surrogate mother are all completed in one sweep inside underground laboratories. Although this gray industry is repeatedly reported, investigated, and raided, and has been exposed successively by domestic and foreign media, from Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou to Qingdao, Anhui, and Changsha, it keeps returning like grass after wildfire.

這一切是怎麼開始的？

How did all this begin?

醫療背景出身、曾跨足金融業的Gavin（化名），因工作需為投資人進行全方位的產業調查，長期關注全球人工生殖市場。他指出，中國不僅不孕夫妻，同志族群的求子需求也極龐大。2016年至COVID-19爆發前，是中國跨境生殖產業「雨後春筍」擴張的關鍵期。

Gavin, a pseudonym, has a medical background and once crossed into finance. Because his work required full-spectrum industry research for investors, he has long followed the global assisted-reproduction market. He points out that in China, demand for children is enormous not only among infertile couples, but also among LGBTQ communities. The period from 2016 to the outbreak of COVID-19 was the critical moment when China's cross-border reproduction industry expanded like bamboo shoots after rain.

若以此為分水嶺，在這之前，市場長期求大於供，財力充裕者赴美求子，資源有限者轉向灰色地帶。他觀察，中國地下生殖產業的前身，可追溯至2000年前後的偏遠山區與滇緬邊境。在一胎化政策與重男輕女氛圍下，部分女性遭人口販運，淪為生育工具。

If we take this as the dividing line, then before it, demand in the market long exceeded supply. Those with ample money went to the United States to seek children; those with limited resources turned to gray zones. Gavin observes that the precursor to China's underground reproduction industry can be traced back to remote mountain regions and the Yunnan-Myanmar border around 2000. Under the one-child policy and a climate favoring sons over daughters, some women were trafficked and reduced to reproductive instruments.

然而，在中國境內，依舊存在官民勾結，甚至由官員把持或作為靠山的地下市場，連名牌醫院都在列。生殖市場形成價格區間，人民幣50萬到100萬元屬於「中階市場」，在中國境內或高加索國家進行。100萬元以上偏向美國等高端需求；預算低於50萬，則多轉往東南亞或法規更寬鬆的地區，卻也伴隨孩子無法入籍甚至入境等風險。

Yet within China there still exists an underground market marked by collusion between officials and businesspeople, and even controlled or protected by officials; even famous hospitals are on the list. The reproduction market has formed price tiers. RMB 500,000 to 1 million is considered the "mid-range market," carried out within China or in the Caucasus countries. Above RMB 1 million tends toward high-end demand in places such as the United States. Budgets under RMB 500,000 mostly turn toward Southeast Asia or regions with looser regulations, though these come with risks such as children being unable to acquire nationality or even enter a country.

誰是這些隱蔽實驗室的幕後操盤者？綜合我們的採訪與過往新聞資料，這些場所多由具醫療背景者投資或管理，包括正規醫院醫師與非法機構合作；或藥廠、生技背景人士涉入。

Who are the behind-the-scenes operators of these hidden laboratories? Synthesizing our interviews and previous news reports, these places are mostly invested in or managed by people with medical backgrounds, including regular-hospital doctors cooperating with illegal institutions, or people from pharmaceutical and biotech backgrounds becoming involved.

Gavin指出，進行取卵手術者，常見是兼差賺外快的醫師；胚胎師則可能來自細胞培養、細胞治療或基因檢測領域，有生物科技背景的人員。至於地下實驗室的設備，有時甚至來自獸醫院。因為人醫設備取得成本高，也有管制，獸醫設備便宜且相對容易取得。只不過這類場所的衛生條件令人憂心，也恐難以達到醫療等級的無菌環境。

Gavin points out that those who perform egg retrieval are often doctors earning extra money on the side. Embryologists may come from fields such as cell culture, cell therapy, or genetic testing, and have biotechnology backgrounds. As for the equipment in underground laboratories, sometimes it even comes from veterinary hospitals. Human medical equipment is costly to obtain and subject to regulation; veterinary equipment is cheap and comparatively easy to get. But the hygiene conditions in such places are worrying, and it is likely difficult for them to reach medical-grade sterile standards.

他表示，地下取卵為壓低成本，通常不會花錢請正牌的麻醉醫師、麻醉護理師，而是由具醫學背景者依受術者體重施打麻醉藥物。除了有一覺不醒的風險，還曾發生誤將鎮靜劑當麻醉藥用，捐卵者身體無法動彈，卻全程清醒感受疼痛。當然，也不排除原本該用於麻醉的費用，遭業者或仲介私吞。

He says that to keep costs down, underground egg retrievals usually do not pay for licensed anesthesiologists or anesthesia nurses. Instead, someone with a medical background administers anesthetic drugs according to the patient's weight. Aside from the risk of never waking up, there have been cases in which sedatives were mistakenly used as anesthetics: the donor's body could not move, but she remained fully awake and felt the pain throughout. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that money that should have been spent on anesthesia was pocketed by operators or intermediaries.

我們發現，捐卵群組出現墨西哥、塞班島等因應全球人工生殖市場移轉的新路徑；中國跨境人工生殖版圖，也已擴及寮國、柬埔寨、喬治亞、吉爾吉斯、哈薩克、泰國等與中國關係密切、監管鬆散的國家。為回應需求，仲介持續招募台灣女性赴當地捐卵，而在低醫療成本地區取得的卵子，又可能被送往美國，協助準家長透過代孕生子，取得美國身分。

We found that egg-donation groups now contain new routes, such as Mexico and Saipan, responding to shifts in the global assisted-reproduction market. China's cross-border assisted-reproduction map has also extended to Laos, Cambodia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Thailand, and other countries with close ties to China and lax regulation. To answer demand, intermediaries continue recruiting Taiwanese women to donate eggs in these places. Eggs obtained in regions with low medical costs may then be sent to the United States to help prospective parents have children through surrogacy and obtain American status.

低價戰爭外，高端市場仍有不少需求，「優質捐卵人」、「職業捐卵人」從2023年採訪時聽聞的「傳說」，實際進到我們的視野。2026年4月，一名史丹佛大學（Stanford University）博士學位畢業的捐卵女孩在LINE群組透露，剛接下8到12萬美元（約新台幣250萬元到370萬元）的週期，「向美國西岸的生殖醫院投了一輪履歷，發現捐卵配對比找工作容易多了。」

Beyond the low-price wars, high-end demand remains substantial. The "high-quality egg donor" and the "professional egg donor," which in our 2023 interviews we had heard of as legends, have now actually come into view. In April 2026, an egg donor with a doctoral degree from Stanford University revealed in a LINE group that she had just accepted a cycle paying US$80,000 to US$120,000, about NT$2.5 million to NT$3.7 million. "I sent a round of resumes to fertility hospitals on the U.S. West Coast and found that matching for egg donation was much easier than finding a job."

有女孩向隱身成捐卵者的我們分享，捐卵賺的是「青春錢，要趁早賺」。我們觀察，比起過去許多赴美捐卵者為的是出國旅遊、賺一桶金投入創業，如今更多女孩考慮以捐卵取代正職。有女孩提到，身邊親友接連做過美國、泰國、中國週期，靠營養金過生活；還有不少女孩交流，如何利用捐卵營養金買股票、投資房地產，有人直言「（跨境捐卵）雖然高風險，但身心狀態比在一般職場好太多。」

One girl told us, while we were posing as egg donors, that egg donation earns "youth money, and you have to earn it early." We observed that compared with the past, when many donors going to the United States did so to travel abroad and earn a first pot of money for starting a business, more girls today are considering replacing regular employment with egg donation. One girl mentioned that friends and relatives around her had completed cycles in the United States, Thailand, and China one after another and were living on nutritional compensation. Many girls also exchange tips on using egg-donation compensation to buy stocks or invest in real estate. Some say bluntly that "although cross-border egg donation is high risk, the state of my body and mind is much better than in an ordinary workplace."

流轉國度之間的不只是卵子，還有人。業者將代理孕母從山村帶往城市、從法規邊陲送往合法國家，例如自中亞甚至非洲招募女性，填補喬治亞代理孕母的短缺。尚未出生的孩子也能移轉，仲介告訴我們，已有業者安排代理孕母前往委託家長母國生產，孩子一出生即可取得國籍，避免因無法離境，淪為國際人球。當一個國家開始嚴查，需求便轉往下一個法規寬鬆之地。日日載著捐卵者與求子者往復地下實驗室的小黑車，只是當中一段隱蔽旅程。

What circulates between countries is not only eggs, but people. Operators bring surrogate mothers from mountain villages to cities, from regulatory borderlands to legal countries; for example, they recruit women from Central Asia and even Africa to fill the shortage of surrogates in Georgia. Unborn children, too, can be moved. Intermediaries told us that some operators have already arranged for surrogate mothers to go to the commissioning parents' home country to give birth, so that the child can obtain nationality at birth and avoid becoming an international human ball because it cannot leave the country. When one country begins strict investigations, demand shifts to the next place with loose rules. The black cars that shuttle egg donors and those seeking children to and from underground laboratories every day are only one hidden leg of the journey.

Seeking truth in depth, walking with many voices.深度求真 眾聲同行

獨立的精神，是自由思想的條件。獨立的媒體，才能守護公共領域，讓自由的討論和真相浮現。

An independent spirit is the condition of free thought. Only independent media can safeguard the public sphere, allowing free discussion and truth to emerge.

在艱困的媒體環境，《報導者》堅持以非營利組織的模式投入公共領域的調查與深度報導。我們透過讀者的贊助支持來營運，不仰賴商業廣告置入，在獨立自主的前提下，穿梭在各項重要公共議題中。

In a harsh media environment, The Reporter persists in devoting itself to investigative and in-depth reporting in the public sphere through a nonprofit model. We operate with support from reader sponsorship, do not rely on commercial advertising placements, and, on the premise of independence and autonomy, move among important public issues of all kinds.

今年是《報導者》成立十週年，請支持我們持續追蹤國內外新聞事件的真相，度過下一個十年的挑戰。

This year marks the tenth anniversary of The Reporter. Please support us as we continue to track the truth of news events at home and abroad and face the challenges of the next decade.