TV shows can powerfully reshape cultural attitudes about a controversial subject. Their seduction lies in the ability to persuade rather than inform. Well, the surrogacy comedy The New Normal offers a glimpse into the market realities of assisted reproduction. Two gay men decide they would like a child, requiring both a surrogate and an egg donor. After deciding they would like a blonde, skinny, intelligent child, the future parents choose an egg donor looks remarkably like Gwyneth Paltrow. This all sounds like a Hollywood exaggeration, but many real world prospective parents go through a similar process.
Many fertility clinics offer a catalog of available donors with pictures and information about their education, work and hobbies for the prospective parents to browse through. It sounds as innocent as choosing a new hair style. In exchange for their valuable goods, egg donors may be paid handsomely.
If this process sounds strangely eugenic, that’s because it is. Many parents who go this route are not satisfied with a healthy child, but instead want to make sure they are getting their “money’s worth” by selecting a donor who possesses desirable traits. The truth is, complicated genetic traits like intelligence, athletic ability, height, and hair color can't be ordered from a catalog.
Egg donors are paid for the desirability of their traits, somewhere in the range of $5,000 to $10,000. But, for the IVY League coed, the varsity Lacrosse player, the model, or the woman with exotic features, the price is higher. These elite donors may be promised as much as $100,000.
One of the mantras of shows like The New Normal is that it doesn’t matter how a child is created as long as the child is wanted and loved. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily how the child feels about it. A recent study of donor offspring found that almost half are bothered that money was exchanged for their conception. They agree with the statement “It is wrong for people to provide their sperm or eggs for a fee to others who wish to have children.”[1] Instead of feeling like a wanted child, it seems that at least some donor offspring feel like a product instead.
We may not be able to close down the market in selling eggs. But, one pragmatic solution is to prohibit high fees for egg donors. Many women donate only because they need the money. Some clinics in the U.K., for example, reported a surge in egg donors when prices were raised.[2] The promise of high fees can lure vulnerable, desperate women to do something they'd rather not, just to pay off a loan or even to buy groceries. Nor should we price human eggs based on outdated eugenic ideas about human traits.
Treating human body parts like market commodities should not be accepted as "the new normal."
[1] Elizabeth Marquardt, Norval D. Glenn, and Karen Clark, My Daddy’s Name is Donor: A New Study of Young Adults Conceived Through Sperm Donation (New York: Institute for American Values, 2010), 7.
[2] “IVF Waiting Lists Down as Egg Donors Get ‘Pay’ Rise: Surge in Hard-Up Women Offering to Sell their Eggs for £750 ‘Due to Recession.’” Daily Mail July 17, 2012 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2174846/Surge-hard-women-offering-sell-eggs.html (accessed September 3, 2012).