tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post7868092095993904065..comments2024-03-09T03:20:20.004-05:00Comments on Tenured Radical: Ova There! Ova There! Send The Word, Send The Word, Ova There!Tenured Radicalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05703980598547163290noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-66661765630256783092010-05-16T23:41:14.601-05:002010-05-16T23:41:14.601-05:00Have to pop in on this one. I remember reading th...Have to pop in on this one. I remember reading these ads with friends about ten years ago at an Ivy, and we mostly were disturbed by the eugenic specifications (must be at least 5'5", blue eyes, 1400+ SAT, etc.). As I recall, the highest number I ever saw was $25,000, and that had a boatload of specs. The class issues at work in this discussion are interesting when compared to the new "wombs for rent" debate, particularly regarding overseas surrogates.Heidihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17360212854272385905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-48600387826215461592010-05-15T23:40:20.479-05:002010-05-15T23:40:20.479-05:00I first heard the $10K figure at least 15 years ag...I first heard the $10K figure at least 15 years ago, it was the going rate in Houston. Some of my students did it and I would have gone with them except I was already too old. They thought at the time that $10K was not enough, because it was quite a lot of trouble and these eggs were valuable.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-34492216605468833412010-05-15T12:41:47.977-05:002010-05-15T12:41:47.977-05:00At least the NYT bags of fuck published this in th...At least the NYT bags of fuck published this in the Health section and not Fashion and Style.Comrade PhysioProfhttp://physioprof.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-44586445550283431282010-05-15T07:55:48.456-05:002010-05-15T07:55:48.456-05:00I forgot to mention: I hate these "the poor ...I forgot to mention: I hate these "the poor egg donors don't know what they're doing" reports. For all the reasons you point out.<br /><br />I think they're part and parcel of the misogynistic conversation around infertility treatments. I'm endlessly fascinated by the fact that ART is one of the few realms of obstetric medicine in which men still predominate, in such numbers that an ART clinic with a female RE on hand will advertise that fact as a plus. The power dynamics, the politics, and the medical implications are all bad.Jodyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06118652456935364104noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-59675097341402344472010-05-14T15:23:51.475-05:002010-05-14T15:23:51.475-05:00Elizabeth Edwards had two late-in-life pregnancies...Elizabeth Edwards had two late-in-life pregnancies, and anyone who's gone through ART would tell you that those are surely donor-egg babies. (She was 48 and 50, I believe, when they were conceived.)<br /><br />As someone who did undergo fertility treatments, I would say that the cancer risks of the hormones are actually pretty well reported. You will probably not be surprised that this (infertility treatment) is another one of those circumstances where women are considered to have f-ed up no matter what choices they made WRT their reproductive choices.Jodyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06118652456935364104noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-54194160998057214042010-05-14T14:15:45.352-05:002010-05-14T14:15:45.352-05:00While I am concerned about the young women who don...While I am concerned about the young women who donate eggs, it's not because they are paid too much, but because the hormones that are used are not good for you.Susanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09716705206734059708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-38251366433178497382010-05-14T10:13:09.742-05:002010-05-14T10:13:09.742-05:00Excellent post. I once considered egg donation as...Excellent post. I once considered egg donation as a grad school funding strategy, back in the day. I didn't do it, mostly because I'm a total chicken about pain and medical procedures, and the medical procedure for egg harvesting is tortuous.<br /><br />I'm with Annie/Lucy: why shouldn't women demand top dollar if they can get it? The paper of record is all about shaming and scolding ambitious women. (Is it almost time for them to run another story about the "new traditionalism" they're seeing, and how Ivy-educated women are running back home? I think Lisa Belkin's opt-out story is now 7 years old, so there should be one this fall again, if my hunch is correct.)Historiannhttp://historiann.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-75819521285428189602010-05-14T09:56:46.405-05:002010-05-14T09:56:46.405-05:00While there is some doubt that highly-educated, li...While there is some doubt that highly-educated, likely high socio-economic status young women at Ivy League institutions will be "exploited" by being paid for their eggs, the reason there is a cap on payments has less to do with those at the top than those at the bottom. It was crafted in response to the dangerously exploitative situation going on in Eastern Europe, where an educated young Slavic woman from Russia or Ukraine can get the equivalent of an entire family of four's yearly salary from a single egg donation procedure in a clinic in Cyprus, where infertile women from Spain and France (which severely restrict egg donation) can purchase eggs for implementation.<br />Unlike sperm, which are ejaculated ready to go by simple design, eggs are not meant to go outside the body in a usable form. Harvesting viable eggs from a woman's ovaries is much more like harvesting a bit of liver or blood vessel: removal of actual, attached, tissues. So the politics of egg donation can be conflated with sperm donation to minimize risk, or it can be associated with organ or tissue donation (which it medically is). So if we take it as organ donation instead of gamete donation, is it ethical to pay someone to donate tissue? The concensus in the US is a resounding no, we cannot buy living tissues for the purpose of implanting it in another body (the difference between selling blood for research and donating blood for use in hospitals). So unlike in Cyprus, we can't pay women the "market value" of their eggs (sperm donation, as legally defined "waste" can be sold for market value, though because it has a high supply, the value is proportionately less). We still want tissue donation to be a Mauss-style gift, full of altruism and lacking exploitation. <br />So why pay women at all? Because the procedure is dangerous. Maybe for some, a psychological danger, but for all, it is dangerous in terms of future fertility, future cancer risk, standard risks associated with any surgical procedure (bad reaction to anesthesia, etc), loss of productive labor through side effects of the drugs and surgery, etc. So in order to compensate women for the risk of egg donation, there is a monetary offer. That the money is still determined through market forces (between 6 and 10 k depending on race, education, religion, etc) smacks of the market system in Cyprus and violates that "thou shalt not be paid for this as though it were work" ethic.<br />But why not pay women as if it was work? They, we, labor to make ovum, through maintaining our health, right? Does not all labor carry risk of death or dismemberment? Perhaps less so in the Ivory Tower (though I"ve suffered my fair share of paper cuts and wounds to the ego), but certainly more so working an asbestos plant or deep sea fishing. <br />On this topic, Donna Dickerson's book "Body Shopping" provides a feminist bioethics approach to understanding how bodies and tissues flow in neoliberal/global capitalisms. She is particularly concerned with egg "donation" in two forms: one for the women in Eastern Europe and generally the state of egg fertility programs in the West, and two the state of egg donation in cloning endevors. Stem cells require a lot of egg cells, and in the case of one Korean researcher, a lot of female graduate students who, in order to get their doctorates, were asked to "participate" in the research through donating their own eggs. No payment, just a doctoral degree, assuming she complied. Lets just say this side-story was overlooked when he was eventually called out in Nature and Science for faking data, even though it was the egg-supply issue that got the investigation of his lab going.Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15516778412252998682noreply@blogger.com