When I was in college, I was once unable to be present during the registration period and asked my roommate to do it for me. It was for that reason that I spent the spring semester of 1981 studying Bioethics in Public Policy. It did nothing toward satisfying the requirements for my degree, but after the first week of class, I was intrigued by the subject and decided to stick it out. I think I got a “B.” In class, we talked about legalizing suicide, Karen Ann Quinlan, eugenics and human experimentation.
It was the first year of the Reagan administration and while it is perhaps difficult to think of those days as a more innocent time, we had not yet heard of AIDS, Baby M, Jack Kervorkian or designer embryos. The most recent of those trends, designer embryos, jumped at me from the front page of the Sunday New York Times a few weeks ago. Here’s how it works: a woman who cannot produce fertile eggs of her own pays a fertile woman to allow herself to be pumped full of hormones and produce an extraordinary number of eggs. Some of these eggs are used to impregnate the infertile woman. Because this is an imprecise technology, there is frequently a surplus of fertile eggs. These fertile human eggs are the hottest item to hit the commodities market since pork bellies. The eggs, however, are perishable. For reasons beyond my comprehension, human eggs cannot be easily frozen, but human embryos can. So the eggs are fertilized with sperm from various men and the embryos are placed in a freezer and onto the markets, where they can be purchased for slightly less then $3,000 by people who’ve had their name on a waiting list for quite some time.
The woman and man who provide the egg and sperm are called “donors” but they are closer to vendors, as men receive around $75 and women receive around $2,000 for their genetic material. Clinics that perform “embryo adoptions” – as they are called – prefer to recruit eggs and sperm from college-educated people. The height, complexion, eye and hair color and ethnicity of each genetic material provider are carefully noted so the prospective parents can assemble a child with a background similar to their own.
Nothing I have described is illegal, nor do I think the government has an interest in making it illegal. My question is, how far should this go toward a fully commercial venture before we apply some brakes? If you’re one of those people who think we as a society are too civilized to exploit this for money, please be reminded there are plastic surgeons out there trying to convince women that having small breasts is an affliction.
Imagine the ads on the Internet, a decade or so from now. “Every parent wants their child to be attractive, intelligent and tall. The good folks at the Cecil Jacobson Institute for Custom Embryonics has been making those dreams a reality since 1997. All our genetic material comes from men and women who have attended Ivy League universities for at least two semesters. Whether you choose Celtic Red, KwaZulu Black, Castilian Tan or Aryan Blonde, all Jacobson babies are guaranteed to grow to at least six feet for boys and five-seven for girls. Each embryo comes with a certificate of authenticity and for a small additional fee, we can guarantee that your child will carry genetic material from one of the former Olympic athletes or swimsuit models on our staff. It’s never too early to start taking steps to ensure your child is the prettiest, smartest and most popular kid on the block. Why wait? Call now. Operators are standing by.”
Operators Are Standing By
When I was in college, I was once unable to be present during the registration period and asked my roommate to do it for me. It was for that reason that I spent the spring semester of 1981 studying Bioethics in Public Policy. It did nothing toward satisfying the requirements for my degree, but after the first week of class, I was intrigued by the subject and decided to stick it out. I think I got a “B.” In class, we talked about legalizing suicide, Karen Ann Quinlan, eugenics and human experimentation.
It was the first year of the Reagan administration and while it is perhaps difficult to think of those days as a more innocent time, we had not yet heard of AIDS, Baby M, Jack Kervorkian or designer embryos. The most recent of those trends, designer embryos, jumped at me from the front page of the Sunday New York Times a few weeks ago. Here’s how it works: a woman who cannot produce fertile eggs of her own pays a fertile woman to allow herself to be pumped full of hormones and produce an extraordinary number of eggs. Some of these eggs are used to impregnate the infertile woman. Because this is an imprecise technology, there is frequently a surplus of fertile eggs. These fertile human eggs are the hottest item to hit the commodities market since pork bellies. The eggs, however, are perishable. For reasons beyond my comprehension, human eggs cannot be easily frozen, but human embryos can. So the eggs are fertilized with sperm from various men and the embryos are placed in a freezer and onto the markets, where they can be purchased for slightly less then $3,000 by people who’ve had their name on a waiting list for quite some time.
The woman and man who provide the egg and sperm are called “donors” but they are closer to vendors, as men receive around $75 and women receive around $2,000 for their genetic material. Clinics that perform “embryo adoptions” – as they are called – prefer to recruit eggs and sperm from college-educated people. The height, complexion, eye and hair color and ethnicity of each genetic material provider are carefully noted so the prospective parents can assemble a child with a background similar to their own.
Nothing I have described is illegal, nor do I think the government has an interest in making it illegal. My question is, how far should this go toward a fully commercial venture before we apply some brakes? If you’re one of those people who think we as a society are too civilized to exploit this for money, please be reminded there are plastic surgeons out there trying to convince women that having small breasts is an affliction.
Imagine the ads on the Internet, a decade or so from now. “Every parent wants their child to be attractive, intelligent and tall. The good folks at the Cecil Jacobson Institute for Custom Embryonics has been making those dreams a reality since 1997. All our genetic material comes from men and women who have attended Ivy League universities for at least two semesters. Whether you choose Celtic Red, KwaZulu Black, Castilian Tan or Aryan Blonde, all Jacobson babies are guaranteed to grow to at least six feet for boys and five-seven for girls. Each embryo comes with a certificate of authenticity and for a small additional fee, we can guarantee that your child will carry genetic material from one of the former Olympic athletes or swimsuit models on our staff. It’s never too early to start taking steps to ensure your child is the prettiest, smartest and most popular kid on the block. Why wait? Call now. Operators are standing by.”