"Seeking healthy females (ages 18 to 33) willing to donate eggs to infertile women. Call or e-mail for information. Please include name and address. $2000 for complete participation. Anonymity is preserved."
Let's take a look at this seemingly harmless plea for help.
Seeking healthy females. Think you're healthy? Well, if you want to be an egg donor, healthy has little to do with how much you exercise or how many Luna bars you eat. Healthy means having wanted genes - fair, blond, blue-eyed, 5 feet 10 inches tall, with no hereditary diseases in your family for four generations. Many female donors fit into these categories -- look for an in-vitro Aryan generation running around in a few years.
Ads at Ivy League schools ask for egg producers who scored 1300 or better on their SATs. Guess that explains why couples are seeking egg producers here instead of at N.C. State.
Parents also want nice kids, so they search out altruistic women who want to help. Ironic, don't you think? How much kindness can you expect from kids whose mothers sold them to the highest bidders?
Willing to donate eggs to infertile women. Willingness is an understatement. Consider the monthlong process of sucking future embryos out: psychological analysis, hormonal drugs, invasive procedures and unlimited risks.
Before the little suckers are extracted, expect questions like, "What will you do when your child knocks on the door, all grown up?" Former eggs showing up on your doorstep in 20 years might be somewhat disturbing.
Medically, egg extraction is similar to an alien abduction. A donor creates a harvesting environment by first taking drugs with menopausal effects. After three weeks of daily injections of the drugs Pergonal and Metrodin, the ovaries expand to baseball size, creating a dozen eggs. Then the eggs are sucked out through a freakin' huge needle.
The risks of egg donation are uncertain. Some women may develop cervical cancer or infertility themselves.