Today I read some pretty bizarre news about former State Representative Ted Klaudt. Basically the guy is on trial for rape because he performed vaginal exams on two foster daughters and the girls allowed it because he told them he is testing them for egg donation. He also told them that each egg could sell for $5000 or more. The tests this guy performed were for his own perverted pleasures, but the egg donation industry is quite real.
What I find funny is that when you sell genetic material you’re considered a “donor”, because to me donation means giving away money or services. When I was in college I saw ads in our school paper looking for intelligent and attractive women to sell their eggs. Eggs have to be harvested with a surgical procedure after the woman is injected with hormones and sells for anywhere from $5000 to $25000. I can see why having such an advertisement in the Berkeley campus paper makes a lot of sense. A lot of these collegiate women are not working and could really use the money to buy things and pay off debt, and being college students they are sort of prescreened for intelligence. Even so, a lot of these egg donation ads also ask for standardized testing scores from tests such as the GRE and SAT. A lot of these young women are also at the peak of their fertility. A news articles from last year reports that college towns are ripe for egg harvests and business is booming.
At first glance, it seems like selling a few cells for thousands of dollars isn’t such a bad deal. After all, it is impossible for a woman to use up all the eggs she is born with. “Donating” eggs does help a lot of infertile couples have children, and that is not a bad thing. People are encouraged to give blood all the time to save lives, and giving eggs creates life so it really seems like a win-win situation for all parties involved. However, I have quite a few concerns about selling eggs. The first is that since the egg dispensing industry is quite young it is not well regulated. There are predators like Ted Klaudt who trick young women into humiliating tests. Also, the health impacts of the hormones injected into these women isn’t very well studied. If a woman donates regularly she would be exposed to hormones that she would not produce naturally. That just seems a bit dangerous to me. Additionally, once the eggs are fertilized there is no telling what the fertility clinics are doing with them. There was a Law and Order episode where a fertility clinic sold one woman’s embryos to multiple couples without the original woman’s knowledge. Even though that is fiction I can see it happening. Basically you have no idea that your eggs are actually going to the one couple that is paying you. This causes problems because if you have children of your own and you have no idea that they have a bunch of half siblings out there it is kind of weird.
In one article I read a Rabbi said, “In Third World countries, [women] go into prostitution. Here, because they have good SAT scores, they sell eggs?” He is concerned that young women are setting prices on their genetic material based on their looks and college credentials. I think that’s not what concerns me the most because technically we do use our credentials and looks to some extent in other parts of life such as work and relationships. I definitely wouldn’t equate selling eggs with prostitution. What troubles me about selling eggs is that families with money can buy a designer baby and choose the genetic profile of their children pre-conception. One of my all time favorite movies is GATTACA with Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, and in that world most humans’ genes are prescreened and parents receive a baby that is an “optimal” combination of themselves. I think buying eggs or sperm is just a type of gene selection. That really scares me because as gene therapy and selection become more and more prevalent and popular eventually the rich will be able to purchase intelligence and beauty before they are even born. Technology is changing how we reproduce drastically, and that created the egg-trade. With all of that said, I don’t think I will ever sell my eggs even if I were in a financial bind.
Since selling eggs is so lucrative, if you were a young woman who hasn’t started in your career and really need money to pay off debts, would you ever sell your eggs? If you are a man who really needs money, would you ask your wife/girlfriend to sell her eggs?
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10 comments ↓
Wow, what a coincidence…someone was just talking to me about this a few days ago. I didn’t know eggs could go for that much money! Hmm…this is certainly worth considering since I do have a pile of debt to pay off in a few years.
I don’t think a guy should be able to dictate AT ALL if a person should be able to sell her eggs- not the guy’s body.
That being said, there are now limits I think on how much you can sell the eggs for. The hormones rule it out for me, otherwise- I don’t plan of having my own biological children so someone else should be able to benefit from my reasonably good genes.
Yeah I think individual states are starting to crack down on how much eggs can be sold for, but the limit is still high enough to entice people to do it. I’m just wondering if men would ask their significant others to do it if they’re in debt. On the other end, if your husband or boyfriend asked you that would you be pissed off?
To be honest, I would sell my eggs if I could use the proceeds from the sale to have a few harvested for myself and hire a surrogate. For non-hereditary health reasons, I am high-risk for carrying a child to term, but my eggs are perfectly healthy. So if “donating” a few of them was what it took for me to be able to have children, I’d do it.
This is one of those industries that seems somewhat specious. Young women who may need some extra cash have the opportunity to sell the eggs that they aren’t using and couples who can’t conceive get the opportunity to have a baby. However, who really knows what kinds of shady deals are made? Infertile couples pay tens of thousands of dollars to conceive and yet a doner receives only like 5k? And like you said, who knows what the effects of the hormones and drugs will be?
All that said, if I didn’t have a boyfriend (on account of the fertility drugs) I would totally sell my eggs. I’ve got student loans out the wazoo and $5,000 would make a pretty nice dent.
[…] as usual. First there is the All Women Blogging Carnival at Red Sultana where my article about selling eggs was included. Being the nerd I am I really liked this article about bird […]
[…] Would You Ever Sell Your Eggs? – Since I wrote this article I found that there is a huge interest in selling eggs. Now about 30 to 40% of my search engine traffic comes from people searching for information on how much they can get for their eggs. It’s pretty funny to me. […]
How much money I can have if I sell my egg?Because I might try.
Which place of body the Docter got eggs?
i would defintely sell my eggs. i don’t plan on having children of my own. So why not. even if i do want kids some day there is always adoption. the whole giving birth myself thing isn’t that big a deal to me. plus it would definetly make a dent in my student loans.
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