March 3, 2008

Does Remuneration for Egg Donation Equate to Selling A Baby?

So far, we've largely managed to avoid the grim possibility of human farms, facilities where humans are manufactured to create organs or children for other human beings. This is not a far-fetched possibility nowadays, even despite various laws in the United States.

While human farming has not yet come to pass, a similar issue has crept upon us subtly, by the name of "egg donation." This seems harmless, yet a disquieting trend to offer remuneration to egg donors has emerged. This concerns me because it seems to be dancing very close to two disquieting notions.

The first is the notion that children can be sold. At first glance, this may not appear to be what is happening, but in the case of egg donation the birth of a child is usually the desired result. Money is being offered for a service, and often advertisements are being placed offering a trade of money for egg cells. It's difficult to argue that this does not constitute a marketplace for children. In and of itself, the idea of selling a child is repugnant. Is that what is actually occurring? If not, how close is remunerating egg donors to selling a baby?

The second disturbing notion is one often propagated in advertisements for the eggs. They ask for attractive and intelligent donors, with the implicit assumption that these traits will be passed on to the eggs and the resulting child. A good deal of money is being offered for these egg cells; why not make sure that the clients are getting their money's worth? Why not pay a few thousand dollars more for a more attractive baby?

It's bad enough that we tend to judge each other on these characteristics in our daily actions and social responses. Do we really want to encourage placing pecuniary values on brains and looks?

I'm not certain that offering remuneration to egg donors is encouraging these immoral and deleterious notions. Still, it seems very likely that offering money for donating eggs will cause harm to our morals and society. We should at least slow down and think through the possible consequences of our actions, for ourselves and for our children- donated or not.