Eggs For Sale
© Beth Skinner
Technology comes with benefits and costs like everything else. President Clinton can be humiliated on a worldwide scale with access to the Starr report on the Internet, and the release of the testimonial videotape. It is mind-boggling to think that we can access this video on the Internet, TV, or at our local book or video stores. Some consider this to be a benefit because they are reminded that many government activities, in a totalitarian country, never see the light of day, and some think this advanced technology has too high a cost - the United States is embarrassed on international television.
Technology has also reached its long arm into the field of medicine. Doctors can take an ova (egg) donated by a woman, sperm donated by a man, fertilize them in a petri dish and then implant them in an entirely different woman. For infertile couples, this technology is nothing short of a miracle. For medical ethicists and anti-abortion groups, this technology sometimes comes at too high a cost.
Couples can go to a clinic, select the type of characteristics they hope to get in a child, and pay $10,000 per attempt. The characteristics can be as mild as tall, brown hair, and green eyes or as particular as Harvard-educated, athletically and musically gifted, 5'7, 110 lbs. etc. Many medical ethicists do not condone this type of meddling. To them it is akin to creating a perfect race. A vision of the Third Reich.
There are often a number of embryos implanted in the attempt to achieve pregnancy. Some of these embryos are then aborted in order to make the pregnancy safer for the mother and for the viable fetuses. Serious problems have occurred with multiple births facilitated by medically induced fertility procedures. Anti-abortionists prefer that women take their chances with all the babies or not attempt the procedure at all.
How is economics involved in this emotion-packed procedure? For one, women are compensated "for their time" when they donate eggs to the tune of approximately $3,000 for regular folk, and reportedly as much as $35,000 for the chance of conceiving an Ivy League "litter." Women of color are often paid more for their eggs as well, due to scarcity of their eggs.
Recently, an article appeared on the MSNBC web site Fighting An Unfair System discussing the shortage of eggs in Great Britain. Women in Great Britain are paid only a "modest fee" for their expenses for donating their eggs. Not surprisingly, there is a long waiting list for eggs in Great Britain. Many of those couples come to the United States looking for eggs which can be found in abundance.
