Debate This: Donating Your Eggs For Cash
Posted by: Lauren Gitlin | Filed in: News & Culture
1:15PM, Wednesday November 12th 2008
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All manner of experts are asserting that the wheels have come off our already craptacular economy and no imminent signs of an upturn are apparent. Massive layoffs across all sectors are forcing even the most resourceful among us to tighten belts and come up with innovative ways to earn extra scratch. Which is why it’s not altogether shocking that in the midst of this fiscal catastrophe, there’s been a marked uptick in women signing on to donate eggs. At roughly $8000 a throw, it certainly seems like a viable option for fertile ladies, and an act that was once relegated to cash-strapped college girls looking for ways to pay off their debt has spread to folks with more pedestrian monetary needs, like making rent.
“I kind of thought of the whole thing as a big experiment,” says Elena, a 23 year old neuroscience student at Columbia who just completed the egg harvesting process and says she’d consider doing it again. “I liked the idea of helping another woman. I understand preferring egg donation over adoption. Some of the research I do is about prenatal insults and how they can lead to all kinds of terrible things like increased risk of schizophrenia and autism, so I can understand wanting to have as much control as possible over the prenatal environment.” And the extra dough to get her through her first semester of grad school didn’t hurt either.
In researching this story, I expected to be hard pressed to find more than a couple of girls who were avidly pro-egg donation, or who had undergone the procedure themselves. In fact, the opposite was true. Friends and friends of friends came out of the woodwork to share stories of their first-hand experiences, and it was actually more difficult finding someone who had not considered donating their eggs than someone who either wouldn’t rule it out or would actively pursue it, both as a sort of philanthropic act and as a relatively painless (if you don’t mind needles or side effects similar to menopause) way to make a good chunk of change. Below, two women fight the good fight for and against.
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Kiki T
[report]wrote on November 12 2008 @ 02:53 pm:
It’s a free world to do whatever we want. I’d never do it and the world has me to thank for that, but for anyone else that wants to go for it, it’s no one’s right to judge them.
Kiki T
[report]wrote on November 12 2008 @ 03:01 pm:
...and for the forcing people into it--that is ridiculous and absurd! those people being approached are most likely poor by choice, as in college students, etc. obviously they are educated to some extent, as the people looking for good genes are not looking at back alley crackheads for their eggs.
that argument would mean anyone in a low economic state loses all sense of morality in the face of fast cash--ridiculous!
abbylyn
[report]wrote on November 12 2008 @ 06:21 pm:
I’m actually in the process of completing my 3rd donation cycle in 4 years. I’m not going to lie, the money certainly doesn’t hurt, and I probably wouldn’t do it if there was no money involved. After all, I am subjecting my body to hormonal manipulation (for a short period of time). But what got me interested in the first place was that my aunt and uncle couldn’t have kids, and I think they would have been such cool parents, that to be able to give that gift to someone else is a pretty awesome thing. I understand the people who argue adoption, but with ovum donation the male (if it’s a hetero couple) can still contribute his dna, same as it would work with IVF with a woman’s own eggs. That means a lot to a lot of couples.
My ex had a big problem with it. He thought of it as me having kids out there that I don’t know about, where I just didn’t see it that way. Yes, the child would have half of my dna, but my contribution stops there - I don’t see myself a parent to these potential children in any way, shape or form. I didn’t carry them, I didn’t birth them, and I am certainly not involved in the parenting process.
Just my two cents.
vegdumpling
[report]wrote on November 12 2008 @ 07:00 pm:
maybe i’m crazy but although i’ve considered it i just can’t get the thought out of my head that what if this baby and another child that i have and raise accidentily meet and want to date. for some reason that totall freaks me out even though it’s such an out-there and not so probable thng.
i went to a class in college with my cousin who i hadn’t met. we both knew that we had a cousin at the school but somehow it took a half a semester to realize that the cute guy i’d been flirting with was related to me. gross and now i am scarred.