Posted on 04/30/2006 3:11:01 PM PDT by 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.”
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
>it’s cool to spread your genes
Like, dude!
One of my doctors told me about this after I had 2 miscarriages. I just let it go in one ear and out the other.
We are adopting at least one (hopefully 2) children this summer. There are 8000+ kids in my state that need to be adopted.
"I'll take "Reasons Why My Husband Spends so Much Time in the BAthroom That Comes as a Complete Shock to Me" for $400, Alex."
And if they'd advertised for a blond haired, blue eyed "Aryan" what would people still believe it's no big deal?
Well put! I was trying to figure out how to state much the same thing. Human beings are NOT a commodity to be put on the open market for a few quick, easy bucks. Some things have inherent value that should put them beyond price and a person is one of them. I guess this is just a natural result of a society that has cheapened life so much that they think nothing of killing those babies before they're born. Why is it that sperm, eggs, and live children have such value but the fetus is treated as cheaply as an old shoe? There's something majorly wrong with our thinking.
Thank you. As my wife and I struggle with infertility, I appreciate what these women are doing.
May God bless you and your hopes for a family.
I don't see how donating eggs is any more reprehensible than donating sperm.
donated sperm - most likely used to inseminate a woman, fertilizing an egg inside her body, no extra embryos to be disposed of.
donated ova - most likely fertilized in a test tube, many extra embryos.
If/when technology changes, allowing the freezing of ova, rather than of embryos, the two donations become more equivalent, which is not to say right.
Mrs VS
That's a great point.
It just isn't of all-encompassing importance in parenting, or loving, a child. Sorry.
She would be an angel for giving up her child for adoption when aborting would have been "more convenient."
If the mother refused to tell the state who the father was, they should not have allowed the baby to be adopted; if she lied and said she was raped, then it's her fault not the state's. It IS possible, you know, that the father would have WANTED the baby, even if the mother had stopped being interested in the man.
NONE of this matters in my scenario, one that has come to pass several times in the US. A court should rule in the child's best interest. Whether the bio-father would have wanted to raise the child, and what reasons the bio-mother may have had for concealing that from the authorities at the time of adoption, are not important. The child has a loving mother and father now. You never should remove a child from loving, caring parents for a stupid genetic reason. A sperm donor who really cares for the child at all would NEVER dream of ripping him from his parents' arms. Period.
They selfishness of people is shocking today.
Indeed, as they should be assessed - both for sperm and egg donors.
Bringing life into the world is a responsibility.
My controversial two cents.
Sounds like you're moralizing the free market, or making it into a force of nature.
That's true --- but only to a limited extent. In many adoptions the adoptee can eventually find out who his genetic parents are (for instance, my Russian son can easily see on his legal adoption papers who and where his birth parents are in Russia.) There are a number of organized search groups in the US that help adult adoptees locate their natural parents as well.
Another, more important point is that gamete vendors will generate many more children than most birth parents will. Sperm vendors especially can beget dozens of children. This (like male promiscuity) dramatically increases the number of half-siblings out there, thereby increasing the chances of inadvertent incest and all its accompanying troubles.
Well a person born via artifical insemination should be careful to avoid dating someone else conceived in the same manner. Besides, in many adoptions, even the mother isn't really sure who the father is. Even with a donor creating 20-30 children, it is unlikely out of the large number of babies born each year you will marry your brother or sister by accident outside of a soap opera.
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