Egg Rebate Debate

Speaking of Eggs... in the UK some brilliant person came up with the idea that instead of trying to make the hard sell to a young women who would not otherwise be interested in selling parts of her body and reproductive ability to a lab, to instead prey on those who already are considering something like IVF. How will this work to the scientists advantage? Well, IVF is really expensive, so........what if the IVF providers gave a woman a discount if she would consent to undergo several fertility treatments and/or give up a fair share of her eggs to the researcher in exchange for her discount.

Sounds logical. Never mind that this puts her health increasingly more at risk and also lowers her chances of one of her eggs being properly fertilized, implanted, and left to grow into a baby. Never mind that this preys upon her emotional desire for a child and her economic disadvantage. Never mind that this still doesn't even touch the question of whether it is OK to buy a woman's eggs, to buy her reproductive ability, to buy a genetic part of her, to buy a piece that can be fairly easily turned into an entirely new human life.

Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at UPenn advises us this way - "It's not that markets or rebates for eggs out to be illegal, but we should not let proponents egg us on into thinking that it is ethical."

Of course....so just because something is unethical doesn't mean it should be illegal. I'm having a hard time coming up with a case where that would be true, though there may be a rare example of that, but I'm having an even harder time coming up with why that would be a good idea in this case. If we as a society think it is unethical, that it does exploit women, that it does prey on the poor, that it does put research over human dignity, then why NOT make it illegal?

Why not? Well, because a little exploitation just might be necessary if you are going to pursue human cloning. So, like it or not, the truth is, it's better to put our women at risk, ask them to sell their bodies, and exploit them then it is to stop cloning.

And there it is - so don't forget ladies, make sure to send in your rebate coupons from your next fertility treatment and your own IVF treatment will be just around the corner. Enjoy!

Eggs-for-Money Scandal

You may or may not be familiar with the need of the developing sciences of SCNT (Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer) = cloning and hESCR = human Embryonic Stem Cell Research for fresh human eggs. hESCR needs cloning to progress and cloning absolutely needs eggs or it's a non-existent science. Eggs come from women, and unfortunately, (or fortunately) human women are not chickens and the idea of just walking in and picking them up is a laugh. Even the idea that eggs might be as easy to collect as sperm is far from the mark. No, no, to collect a woman's eggs, the general process is to give her a heavy dose of drugs to cause hyper-stimulation, bring her into a doctors office and physically remove them from inside her body. Possible side effects are heavy bleeding, hemorrhaging, organ failure, infertility, and death.

Small price to pay for the good of moving science forward?

Now, because eggs are so needed, it would be cynically logical to assume that someone somewhere would probably be willing to pay a woman to go through this process and provide him/her with eggs. You may be surprised to learn that this is not only completely LEGAL, but it is not just someone somewhere, it's most universities, scientists, and institutes who want to engage in cloning research. Without so much as a whisper of discussion about whether this is ethically a good idea and whether it's good for women, there is already a booming market in women's eggs.

Young college women (preferably smart, beautiful, and very fertile) and poor minority women are the best candidates here in the States - both ripe for the sell because of their financial position. Internationally, it is about the same, though the preference is generally given to whole populations of poor women in countries like Romania or the Czech Republic. Another simple group to target is female research assistants - most infamously promoted by now-disgraced South Korean research, Dr. Hoo-Suk Hwang.

So, where are we now? Well, things are well underway no doubt, but even so, this eggs-for-money scandal is starting to gin up a little attention - a Feminist organization of pro-life and pro-choice women started a group called Hands Off our Ovaries - http://handsoffourovaries.com/ There have been numerous articles in the UK about the egg market recently...particularly on the practice of using poor women in other countries. Even in the US some controversy has started to arise about the blatant advertising in college newspapers that entice women to risk their health and lives for the sake of a fat check.

Singer on how we (do not) have dignity as humans

Peter Singer is always an interesting read. Just when you think "no one would actually say that!" well...he does. Today's op-ed in the New York Times (found at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/opinion/26singer.html) is a perfect example. Singer comments on the controversial case of Ashley, a severely mentally-disabled girl, whose parents had her body modified with surgery and hormones so that she could never grow any bigger and therefore live easier and simplify her care. Not only is this story worth pondering at length for its own ethical questions and merits, but, Singer's last two paragraphs are fascinating. They are as follows:

"Here’s where things get philosophically interesting. We are always ready to find dignity in human beings, including those whose mental age will never exceed that of an infant, but we don’t attribute dignity to dogs or cats, though they clearly operate at a more advanced mental level than human infants. Just making that comparison provokes outrage in some quarters. But why should dignity always go together with species membership, no matter what the characteristics of the individual may be?
"What matters in Ashley’s life is that she should not suffer, and that she should be able to enjoy whatever she is capable of enjoying. Beyond that, she is precious not so much for what she is, but because her parents and siblings love her and care about her. Lofty talk about human dignity should not stand in the way of children like her getting the treatment that is best both for them and their families."

Amazingly, he argues that human beings by virtue of being human have NO inherent value or dignity. You might rationally view a dolphin as having more value than a small child because they are more intelligent and a cheetah as having more dignity than a person in a wheelchair because of their swift, graceful, and agile bodies. This makes sense because value and dignity for Singer are based exclusively on mental and physical abilities. (Never mind for now that this is subjective and changeable.)

His next and final paragraph makes it clear that even this value is true only because we as a society have decided these are the things that merit value. Anyone or anything living outside of these characteristics - strong in mental and physical health - is not valuable in itself, but only if society or part of society choose to value it. Hence, in Ashley's case, since she is clearly outside the perimeter of the definition of something that inherently demands respect, care, and value, if her parents and siblings were to stop simply loving and caring for her, it would be rational to assume that she would flatly cease to have any value at all.

If I were less cynical I would find this shocking; as it is I simply find it incredibly sad.