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!