Sadly, egg donation has less to do with altruism and more to do with the exploitation of women--particularly young women and often poor women who are usually facing large debts or just trying to make ends meet. In fact, we contend that human egg harvesting is the newest form of human trafficking. [...] U.S. laws do not currently recognize the trafficking of human organs as part of human trafficking. Yet the United States did recently ratify the U.N. Trafficking Protocol and, consequently, has a commitment to bring its national legislation into harmony with its provisions. The buying and selling of human tissue represents a commodification of the human body that has already been declared an affront to the basic dignity of the human being by international laws. Egg donation is a form of trafficking in the human body. |
That's from a piece in First Things coauthored by an adjunct professor at George Washington University and the founding director of Hands Off Our Ovaries. They're calling for Congress to adopt a definition of trafficking that encompasses not only Emperor's Club employees, but anyone who buys a kidney on the black market or eggs on the gray one. Given the breadth of their definition, it seems to me that it would also include sperm donors and surrogate mothers. Actually, given the breadth of their definition, it seems to me that it would include any employment contract of which these activists do not approve. Even if the authors restrict themselves to adult women selling ova, it's worth reflecting on the vulgarity of this conflation. Johan Hari here describes a 14-year-old Bangladeshi girl sold into prostitution in Calcutta, forced to service 10 men a day. The average American egg vendor is probably a healthy middle class college student looking for help with tuition. If you're actually concerned about child slavery, the idea of comparing the experiences of the former and the latter might well strike you as grotesque. |
you can reasonably expect to regenerate a sperm or egg,
I am willing to sell excess hair and fingernail clippings, by the way. Not that I have actually been saving for such a contingency arising, but I could if there was a market available...