Ivy League Coeds Sell Their Eggs

Re “Eggs Buy a College Education,” May 27: The practice of Ivy League coeds selling their eggs to infertile couples is horrifying. It is reminiscent of eugenics experiments in Nazi Germany and should be banned immediately.

Women who sell their eggs are not doing it out of altruism; if you took away the monetary reward, there wouldn’t be any women selling their eggs. Industry supporters argue that the low amounts of money some women are paid indicate that only sympathy for childless couples could possibly have motivated them. This simply indicates that some young women are already being exploited; for many women, any money is a lot of money.

As usual, the feelings and emotions of children born through egg-selling are completely ignored. What would it feel like, later in life, to find out that you were born the product of a $50,000 payment to a complete stranger (your mother?), who used you to finance her Ivy League education?

Nadia Silvershine

Kentfield, Calif.

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Had I not known better, your article would have led me to believe that many egg donation cycles are being done with the donors receiving obscene amounts of money. The fact is, the vast majority of egg donors receive amounts well within the guidelines of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

The $4,000 or $5,000 that most donors receive seems like small compensation for lost time, trouble, pain and risk. In my experience, the young women who donate their eggs have primarily altruistic motives, beside the financial ones.

I think it is not only unethical, but also foolish, for couples to be willing to pay over $50,000 for a “model’s egg,” since there is no guarantee that the baby will be born with the husband’s brains and the model’s looks. It can turn out the other way.

Arthur L. Wisot MD

Reproductive Partners

Medical Group

Redondo Beach

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If there were not a commodified, market-driven answer to couples who put making money during their baby-making years ahead of actually making babies, I wonder how many of them would have chosen to adopt one of the children languishing in California’s overburdened foster care system? Better yet, I wonder how many would have decided that raising a family young was more important than having all the things career advancement can buy.

Adreana Langston

Long Beach