Human Nature: Science, Technology, and Life.

Creativity and Body Parts

Drawn by payments of up to $10,000, an increasing number of women are offering to sell their eggs at U.S. fertility clinics as a way to make money amid the financial crisis. ... The Center for Egg Options in Illinois has seen a 40 percent increase in egg donor inquiries since the start of 2008. New York City's Northeast Assisted Fertility Group said interest had doubled and the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine said it had received 10 percent more inquiries.

One clinic's egg donation manager explains that the bad economy "encourages women to find creative ways to make money." It's an interesting use of the word creative. In this case, two kinds of creativity seem to be involved. One is the invention of egg donation in the first place. Selling eggs was impossible until doctors learned how to extract, preserve, fertilize, and transfer them for successful implantation. These breakthroughs made eggs transferrable and commercially valuable.

The second kind of creativity goes hand in hand with the first. You don't normally think of selling your body's parts or products. But bad times can make you think hard. One reason you might not have thought of selling something from your body is that the idea felt unnatural or somehow made you uncomfortable. But for $5,000, with bills to pay and no other income prospects, you decide you can get over those feelings.

Economics clearly drives the donation market. Two years ago, Reuters notes, a study found that the average payment to an egg donor in the United States was $4,216. But the average sperm donor in New York City gets only $60 per deposit. And sperm banks, unlike egg donation programs, are reporting no recent increase in donations. The money's not good enough.

The next question is whether money can persuade you to donate not just a body product, but a body part. In principle, half the world's kidneys are expendable. People are already buying and selling them on the global market, regardless of laws. Some reformers are proposing to replace this black market with a regulated system of incentives ranging from $15,000 to $40,000. If $5,000 is enough to make people think creatively about donating their eggs, $15,000 might well be enough to do the same for kidneys.

Octuplets and Opportunism

Under a Georgia bill, if you're 39, your doctor is forbidden to fertilize more than two of your eggs per treatment cycle. Take all the hormones you can stand, make all the eggs you want, but you get two shots at creating a viable embryo, and that's it.

How does this restriction "protect the mother" and "reduce the risk of complications" for her? It doesn't. ... So why limit the number of embryos created per cycle? Because the bill's chief purpose isn't really to help women. It's to establish legal rights for embryos.

More here.

Eggonomics

Looking for some extra income to make ends meet during the recession? Try selling eggs. Not chicken eggs. Your eggs.

Melinda Beck has the story in today's Wall Street Journal:

Here's another sign of the tough economic times: Some clinics are reporting a surge in the number of women applying to donate eggs or serve as surrogate mothers for infertile couples.
"Whenever the employment rate is down, we get more calls," says Robin von Halle, president of Alternative Reproductive Resources, an agency in Chicago where inquiries from would-be egg donors are up 30% in recent weeks—to about 60 calls a day. "We're even getting men offering up their wives. It's pretty scary." James Liu, a reproductive endocrinologist at University Hospitals, Case Medical Center, in Cleveland, says there is no waiting now for egg donors since his roster has swelled from the usual 4 to 17. Andrew Vorzimer, an attorney who represents prospective parents in Los Angeles, says the usual six-month wait for a surrogate in California has vanished as well. "Many of these women have college loans to pay off or they want to help buy a house or provide for their own kids' education," says Mr. Vorzimer, who is also CEO of Egg Donation Inc., a recruiting agency.

So the good news is, you have an exploitable asset in your ovaries. The bad news is, you have to compete with all the other young women—and apparently their husbands—who have realized the same thing. Did I mention the daily hormone shots? The prohibition on intercourse? The needle extraction?

Still, it's a better deal than lots of people in the developing world are getting. They're selling kidneys; you're only selling eggs. And you can make a lot more money than they can. Beck lays out the numbers:

The going rate for a surrogate is about $25,000. Egg donors generally receive $3,000 to $8,000. But a few agencies advertise that they'll pay much more for specific characteristics. One ad running in campus newspapers promises $25,000 for a donor who is "100% Jewish with ... High SAT Scores... Attractive, at Healthy Body Weight and Free of Genetic Diseases." ... "Now that we have more donors, it's become a buyer's market," Ms. von Halle says. "Some people are looking for a 6-foot Swedish volleyball player with 39 ACTs, and they'll take their time." ... Darlene Pinkerton, executive director of A Perfect Match in San Diego, which offers up to $50,000 for egg donors with high SATs ... [has] seen a doubling of inquiries recently. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine considers compensation above $10,000 to be inappropriate; Ms. Pinkerton argues that the offer brings in donors who might not otherwise be interested.

In other words, the egg market is working like any other market. A Perfect Match is offering big bucks for exactly the same reason the ASRM opposes this practice—because money can persuade people to do things they otherwise wouldn't do. Actually, the 50 grand supplies only half the persuasion. The other half comes from the recession. You need money; you're running out of options; here's a way to get it.

But ordinary eggs won't get you the 50 grand. For that, you'll need the SAT scores, and the face, and maybe a bit more height. You'll need to be tested for the wrong genes—and maybe for the right ones, now that we can project athletic potential from specific variants.

Do you find this scrutiny degrading? Does the whole tiered pricing system offend you? Then go look in the mirror. Catering to buyers' tastes is part of selling. I know it's a lousy economy out there. But if you don't want others treating your eggs as a commodity, don't treat them that way yourself.