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 ...
We forget ancient cultural wisdom to our peril. Even in 21st century America, subcultures which countenance this kind of male misbehavior (males who inseminate but do not stick around to "father") give rise (in the first generation) to sons who are pimps, parasites and predators; and in succeeding generations to a host of recessive-genetic miseries.
Certainly if I knew I was conceived by AI, I would avoid dating a person conceived the same way. But why would you think they would know? It seems to me that would be something the parents would be unlikely to reveal to their unnaturally-conceived children.
I don't understand the guilt factor either; it just seems to be assumed by the original poster because he's against IVF. Those who are not against IVF (and I see many on FR) wouldn't understand why "guilt" would be an issue, either.
I suppose you exclude yourself from "whatever I decide".
If so therefore you have no moral absolutes that you would categorize as being a necessary function for a civilized society?
Not just in a free society but the good Lord gave everyone free will so you can choose to go to hell and forfeit the perfection of a eternal life in Heaven with your Creator if you want to.
Designer children where you can pick gender and eye color so one doesn't have to be "burdened" with a child that doesn't fit their idea of a perfect one
Yeah who needs moral absolutes
/sar
I guess its because many on FR don't have moral absolutes and they subscript to the philosophy of doing what is right in their own eyes which is a made up "standard" from bits and pieces collected a long the way composed of WHAT THEY WANT TO BELIEVE because it allows for situational ethics to suit their desire at the time
It takes strength of character to NOT do what you want to do in favor of
what is the RIGHT thing to do
If that were the case --- if a child were begotted for the purpose of being bought, sold, traded, or adopted out --- that would be immoral as well.
As the case stands, adoption is a matter of responding to tne needs (indeed the rights) of a child who was brought into this world poorly-provided-for. There the child is; he needs parents; the adptive mother and father step in as needed.
But vendor-gamete conception, the child is being deliberately brought into existence with the expectation (in fact the hope) that he will be permanently alienated from at least one of his genetic parents.
His very existence is predicated on the idea that his birthrights are transferrable. From the point of view of the child's own dignity, this is wrong.
I find the LACK of money to be pretty evil as well...:-)
I haven't seen any moral pronouncements against it, except from the Catholic church. So if you're not Catholic, seems you're good to go.
1) Sorry, I don't regard it as particularly saintly not to kill your baby.
2) In your scenario, a father's legal rights have been unfairly taken away. He has a legal claim. It may be true that the best interests of the child would, in a particular case, lie with the adoptive parents, but you can't simply say "tough luck" to the biological father and not even give him a day in court. If the judge then finds that the child would be best off staying with the adoptive parents, the biological father (assuming he is not unfit) still deserves both visitation rights and compensation from the state for improperly taking away his parental rights. (If he is indeed a "LOW LIFE" he can be found unfit and lose any rights, but they ought to have to PROVE that he is unfit in court.)
The Catholic Church (or any Church) will have some moral stands which are in fact universal: that is, not based upon distinctive supernatural doctrines, but based on a careful consideration of justice and humanity. This kind of moral stand is called Natural Law: not because it's based on general animal nature (zoology), but because it's based on "natural" reason and the requirements of human nature and which is applicable to everyone.
To illustrate: if the Catholic Church says, "There's an obligation to go to Mass on Sunday," that's based on something distinctive to one church (Mass) and a supernatural doctrine (that the Lord was raised from the dead on a Sunday.) But if the Church teaches that selling your children into slavery is wrong, it's because the child has the same nature that you do, and is to be treated as "person" and not as "property."
To put it briefly, every person's secure sense of identity and belonging is based on his parentage. Under conditions which are natural to the human race, your genetic mother, your gestational mother, your social mother and your legal mother are the same woman; your genetic father, social father and legal father are the same man (and is married to your mother.) That is the physical basis for security and stability for the child.
If anything goes inadvertently wrong here --- a parent dies, or a child is conceived by parents who can't raise the child --- then other arragements (such as adoption) have to be made in response to the needs of the child.
But it would be wrong to deliberatly bring a child into existence via a process where his very sense of identity will be intentionally "fractionated."
Some of the assisted reproductive technologies just help infertile parents overcome their infertility and then have children through marital intercourse: this is fine. But to premeditatedly bring a child into existence missing a chunk of his parental birthright is unjust to the child: it's depriving him of the normal set of "identity coordinates" that everybody has a right to.
A more detailed ethical discussion can be found here:
http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c04109.htm
A shorter and more personal take by Eve Tushnet is here:
http://www.ncregister.com/articulo.php?artkod=ODg=
"To put it briefly, every person's secure sense of identity and belonging is based on his parentage."
I was adopted as an infant under the old (and I believe, superior) "closed" adoption method. I have no idea who my biological parents are, and I don't know if I'm biologically related to anyone living on this planet. I also don't care, because my adoptive parents were terrific. So I consider that point to be horse hockey (to put it as sweetly as possible).
IVF uses biological material from at least one of the parents, so there's at least a biological connection, and you can't say that people willing to go through such an arduous and expensive method to become parents are not doing it with a great deal of thought and purpose. So if you and your church don't like it, fine, but I don't see people demonstrating loudly outside of IVF clinics to stop the procedure, or marching on Washington to end the tragedy of IVF.
As for the theological argument, I've been involved in those, particularly on the thread where the lesbian sued because he Catholic doctor would perform AI on her. Lots of condemnation for the lesbian but little for the Catholic doctor who is making money by violating his religious beliefs on creation.
It's been my experience on FR that those who throw around the morality paint are the ones who need a good dousing themselves.
The chances of two meeting is small. The chances of those two then procreating is even smaller. And the chances that they will have a common harmful recessive genotype is much, much, smaller. Combine these three improbabilities and you have odds that are so infinitesimal as to be statistically zero.
"What they fail to mention is the adverse long term affects of the guilt about what they've done."
Getting paid for something (egg removal) that nature does for free (via menstruation) is doubtful to have any long-term negative consequences on this woman.
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