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As the economy continues to tumble towards depths not seen since in decades, some women are turning to a new source to help increase their income by donating their eggs.
Courtney Smith, 26, is a wine steward at a high-end restaurant. She explained that with the economy hurting her business, she volunteered to donate her eggs, which she did about two years ago when money was very tight.
“I was paid $7,000,” Smith said. “It felt good. I mean, it feels good to have money, and I paid off a student loan”.
Smith was chosen to donate her eggs after submitting information about herself. After she was picked, she took a round of hormones for two weeks to stimulate ovulation. Several weeks later, her eggs were taken out, and she was eventually compensated; in turn, a couple received her eggs…
The agency where Smith registered said they’ve seen the number of women wanting to donate double, and they think it’s wonderful to give someone a child if they can’t produce on their own.
Kathy Benardo, runs an egg donor agency, said, ‘I don’t want people to lose sight that it is a treatment for infertility. Infertility is a disease and this is one of the most effective treatments there are.”
Smith said she has no emotional connection with her eggs. Recently, she was matched with another couple, and may be paid $8,000. She’s just one of many women who may take advantage of such a program to raise money.
It’s her own property, right? Should society interfere with selling eggs?
I just can’t help but think of all the young men who donated to a sperm bank in the 1980s, and are now having to deal with their biological children tracking them down.
Well, she did have X number of eggs. Now she has X-Y number of irreplaceable eggs. Does she know that?
Aren’t the eggs/sperm banks wary of subprime deposits?
These treatments are primarily used by racist white people who refuse to adopt and take care of a black, brown or yellow baby. On that basis alone, infertility treatments should be banned.
Having watched a multitude of women go through failed birth control, pregnancy and birth these women are not missing a thing, and they should quit being so selfish and just go and adopt.
#4 GregA,
Get over yourself. Have YOU adopted a black yellow and green baby?
#5,
Black, and your point is?
I would assume that GregA. has no children. As a father of an IVF baby I can assure you that this is the most wonderful gift anyone could give my wife and I.
You have no idea how the roller coaster of emotion feels til you’ve taken the ride. The toll it took on my wife that she could not produce the eggs needed biologically was heart wrenching. It worked on her psyche in a way that it made her feel like she was “any less of a woman”. When we finally went through with the donor eggs and she could feel our daughter growing within her, it put her mind at ease.
This article has nothing to do with race, but rather the love of family.
Greg A. I hope you reconsider your earlier views. They are very hurtful .
Greg A, that was a horrible sentiment. Christmas must have really sucked the happiness out of you this year.
hah, hah. Pure EGO to want to raise YOUR OWN GENETIC STRAND. Not a love of family when that is the motive.
Its why cloning will take off big time when its available.
Silly Hoomans just loving themselves, as close as they can possibly get.
Unwanted kids should get all the support they need, or get flushed. Half way measures as used in most of the world are really inhumane.
Bobbo?
Your statement makes no sense. My wife received EGGS from a DONOR. Her GENETICS are not involved at all. Hence no EGO.
This is a very emotionally cold thread.
#7,
Well, I still think objective reality is more important than you and your wives “feelings”.
But none the less, you describe almost exactly the type of designer baby scenario which I suspect you are against on some level or another. In this case the designer baby criteria was “had to come from her uterus”. Which while not as exotic as “I want triplets” or “I am a lesbian and i want a baby without a father” or “I want a boy/girl” is still a designer baby, at its core. Which is why I am against IVF, and also why I call it selfish.
But then again, if your wife didn’t feel womanly enough because her breasts are too small, I suspect you would support her decision to get breast implants… or facelift, or lipo suction, etc etc… And the other elements of modern american womanhood that are so internalized that they go unnoticed..
It is funny how you can come to the conclusion that IVF is selfish and immoral going at from either the liberal or conservative perspective. I suspect that is why the IVF industry does so much brand activism with articles like this one.
Puts a pleasant spin on collage age girls doing the whole being a prostitue to pay for school thing.
#8,
Yeah, there was a lot of wind and snow up there on the mountain this year. Best Christmas ski season in my memory. Then two days after christmas, the temperature got into the 50’s. Wow, what a trip that was, the 50’s and lots of powder snow;)
Although you are right, last night I drank like a whole bottle of champaign by my self and that has me a little crankier than normal.
Re: 9, “hah, hah. Pure EGO to want to raise YOUR OWN GENETIC STRAND. Not a love of family when that is the motive.”
Bobbo? …Is that really you? That’s not EGO you are referring to, but evolutionary hard wiring causing evolutionary behavior and evolutionary emotions, and feelings as genuine as you can get.
Compassion for another “hooman” baby can often be a very close second (as in the case for Rackarich), but not everyone has the capacity and/or genetic disposition to raise someone else’s children… as well as their own, and that doesn’t consequently make them somehow deficient.
I agree with you that unwanted (unborn) children should not be brought into this world without a GUARANTEE that someone will love and care for them as if they were of their own genetic reproduction. The method Rackarich and his wife chose is about as close to that objective as you can get.
EGO can better be applied to the selfishness of “right to lifers” who think more of their own emotions and feelings than the risk of despair for children who find themselves unwanted and shunted from place to place.
#13,
Anther interesting element of this story is economics. It is interesting how sex workers make the same amount of money if they are turning tricks or selling their eggs.
Also… more economics…
I wonder if black, brown or yellow women are able to sell their eggs for the premium that white woman are able to?
I am bowing out of this discussion. I wish you all the best and hope that karma never catches up with you.
#16–Rakarich==if you spin by again, where did the sperm come from? I’ll simply note there are exceptions to every generality==often a lot. Does not negate the general situation.
Your failure to respond will be seen as an admission it was your sperm.
hah, hah. Yea–no ego at all. You know, your kid could have had better odds at being smarter if you had selected the sperm from outside your clan.
#13–Jim==we mostly agree and that should not be lost. Still, the nonsense was advanced that people undergoing IVF where doing so “for love of family.” THATS SIMPLY NOT TRUE, as a family can be formed by adoption. So, “logically” it has to be something else. In your response, I really don’t see any difference between what I called ego and you call genetic hard wiring==even though ego exists and hard wiring does not.
Call it whatever you want, but not love of family (alone).
Should society? No.
Will some busy body? Of course.
Sure enough Bobbo, I almost always agree with you. It doesn’t hurt to disagree once and a while though.
EGO is mostly a socially negative characteristic, but the desire to reproduce naturally or by your own genes is no more a character flaw than your skin colour.
There is more than just one method to pursue “love of family” without involving EGO. Naturally growing your own has the most “appeal” as we can’t help what we are born for. IVF seems the logical next choice, where a woman’s eggs and her husband’s sperm are used (95% of cases)… followed by IVF where the egg or sperm is donated anon.
Again, ego may enter the equation for some messed up individuals, but that is as probably as rare as egocentric assholes who also have a reproduction deficiency.
My sister went through the IVF process after losing her natural unborn child at 8.5 months and not being able to conceive after that, and they ended up adopting. Result… great kid and a wonderful family unit.
Re # 14, Greg A: “interesting how sex workers make the same amount of money if they are turning tricks or selling their eggs.”
That statement makes no sense at all. You are saying that sex workers make $7000-$8000 for turning an undefined number of tricks. So?
Plumbers also make make $7000-$8000 for doing an undefined number of jobs. What’s your point?
RE: #15 Greg A: “I wonder if black, brown or yellow women are able to sell their eggs for the premium that white woman are able to?”
Why not look it up and get back to us.
#20–Jim==am I missing something? You post a CONCLUSION disagreeing with me but your entire argument is in agreement.]
If a desire to have a family was the driving force, then on procreation problems, or even without if you come right down to it, ADOPTION is the practical, easiest, cheapest, most compassionate, societal beneficial way to have that family. BUT people spend years, dollars, and emotions to get one or both genetic lines of the parents involved. Explain that as desiring a family instead of wanting to extend your own genes.
Cover that, and we can continue with Introductory Freud==its just that basic.
“Explain that as desiring a family instead of wanting to extend your own genes.”
My last statement wasn’t a conclusion, just some validation to my opinion
My conclusion was and still remains… the inherent desire to extend one’s own genes has nothing to do with ego. Desire to extend one’s own genes and a desire to have a family are one and the same. The drive behind it supersedes any compassion for another persons unwanted children.
“ADOPTION is the practical, easiest, cheapest, most compassionate, societal beneficial way to have that family.” You make it seem that the couple trying to conceive via IVF is responsible for those children. They are not. It would be better for society if those who bear the children kept them, with help if necessary, or they were aborted if unwanted. And also, contrary to what you said, it is neither cheaper or easier to adopt a child over IVF.
#24–Jim==everything I think I know and my understanding of set theory is in error huh?
I have much to learn with your beneficence. I only hope you post here long enough for me to recast my education.
Mustard requests you start with my punctuation.
#25 – Bobo
>>my understanding of set theory
Oh, brother.
Bobbo, my intention was not to make you feel inferior. Sorry about that.
🙂
“It’s her own property, right? Should society interfere with selling eggs?”
How about a big Y-E-S! Let’s see, there’s all this moralistic republican backlash about stem cell research. And using stored eggs and sperm for experimental research. And certainly there’s huge objections to people selling babies, like on eBay or something. But for some reason, it suddenly becomes Ok to sell eggs and sperm for others to try and make babies with. Hmmmm. Am I missing some fine distinction here? Why is one Ok, and the other not Ok? Is this some fancy shell game logic? Or other example of a grandfathered industry, like Tobacco, that gets by with its lack of ethics, in selling a product?
So it’s Ok to sell eggs, if you plan on making blue eyed boy who’ll go off to war someday. But just don’t experiment on those eggs to find a cure for the diseases that kills thousands every year. You’re only allowed to make life, NOT save life.
In some states in not legal to marry your own sister or brother, even if you’re both adopted, and not blood related. But all this trafficking in eggs and sperm, complicates things by NOT having any paper trail of who’s related to who. Anyone could easily marry (and having children with) someone whom their parents supplied the reproductive cells of. And never even suspect it, until (perhaps) their children turn out deformed or something. And almost certainly the doctors aren’t going to rat out the system they’re apart of, as the cause of it. The same has also held true for marrying adopted persons. No records are made available to keep one from marrying a close blood relation. That might put a crimp in the adoption business. Another grandfathered institution, that’s out of step with out understanding of genetic diversity.
They could pass a law to force DNA tests and records be kept of adoptees and cell donations. But this could put a crimp in a rack that doctors have profited by for years (mostly males). Donating sperm to pay for Medical School. A paper trail would make it much more difficult to hid their abuse of the system. The clinics should impose donation limits. But I seriously doubt they ever do. Especially for new doctors.
GregA, there’s nothing wrong with white people, or white people wanting white babies. Don’t be an ass.
LOL! I agree with GregA. Although not about the whole race issue. I’ll just throw that out the window, thank-you very much. In these times, is race even an issue anymore? 0.o
However I do think it is selfish not to adopt. I mean you want a kid, and millions are available. What’s so great about having one grow inside you?
I mean seriously, the same thing about abortion. I hate when people go: “millions of would be parents would love to have a beautiful baby” That is selfish!!! There are more than enough children ages 1-17 that need homes. But people want to be the ones to raise them from the get-go. So it is selfish!
With that said, as a student that needs money, I am more than happy to donate. Which I am in the process of doing. Am I a hypocrite? Completely. Do I care? Not a at all!