Fears are rising that a controversy over egg donations at the world’s most successful stem cell research lab may reignite an ethics debate among U.S. scholars and an upsurge in political confrontation.

According to Sunday’s edition of the Washington Post, the recent ethics crisis enveloping South Korean stem cell pioneer Hwang Woo-suk has effectively quashed a number of projects intended to prove stem cell studies' medical potential, and has raised ethical questions over the issue of paying for human egg donations.

The U.S. daily said given the current technology level, around ten eggs are required to produce one human embryo, thus giving rise to a potentially enormous demand for human ova.

Recent allegations against Hwang have suggested that he may have obtained human eggs for his studies from women who felt pressured to donate.

The practice of paying for donated eggs in the U.S., meanwhile, remains legal. Indeed, two American stem cell research teams were found to have recently paid thousands of dollars to donors over the past couple of months.

Meanwhile, at least six stem cell-related bills including one that would allow broader use of federal funds for research and another that would allow the creation of cloned human embryos but would ban payment for eggs are awaiting U.S. congressional action.