Babies to Order (College women selling their eggs)

Current Magazine/MSNBC ^ | 4/30/06 | Sarah Kliff

[wagglebee]

Summer 2006 issue - Three years out of graduate school, Julia Derek has twelve kids. Or so she thinks. As a penniless senior at George Mason University, she spotted an ad in The Washington Post from a couple looking to buy a young woman’s eggs. Ten years, 12 donations, $50,000, and one successfully financed postgraduate degree later, Derek, now the author of “Confessions of a Serial Egg Donor,” explains the appeal of egg donation: “You’re doing a good thing, it feels good that people want you, it’s cool to spread your genes…It seems like a great thing to make money on.”

And college students can make a lot of money. An examination of campus dailies suggests just how much the DNA of an educated young woman who fits the requirements of the recipients might be worth. An ad in the Columbia Spectator promises $12,000 to a Caucasian student with brown hair and an SAT score above 1300, while two in the Harvard Crimson offer $35,000 to “one truly exceptional woman who is attractive, athletic, under the age of 29” and $50,000 to “an extraordinary egg donor. Must be between the ages of 18 and 26.”

“It’s really easy to get hooked,” says Derek, who initially became interested in egg donation when she realized it could substitute for a part-time job. “For a student it’s a ridiculous amount of money.”

[silverleaf]

Do I detect a sneer in your post? There was none in mine.

Perhaps you should re-read Genesis, especially chapters 16-25 before you presume to lecture on Abraham's lifestyle and his relationship with God.... and God's involvement in the lives of both Ishmael and Isaac.

Isaac was embraced in God's covenant made with Abraham, but Ishmael enjoyed a lesser status....not disfavor. Ishmael received God's favor and protection because he was Abraham's son, and because Abraham asked God for this and God agreed.

The fact the Ishmael was never at peace with his brothers/half brothers...was ordained before his birth, by an angel who described Ismael's difficult future temperament to Hagar when he saved her from dying in the desert, after Sarai turned her out. It was not because of the circumstances of Ishmael's birth to a surrogate mother, arranged by Sarai. And it was not because of any disfavor by God toward Ishmael, who was circumcised as was every male member of Abraham's household..which included many concubines who bore sons to Abraham, and slaves including purchased children.
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So read "the Book" before you sound off about "God's disfavor" with Abraham's lifestyle.