Michael A. Dingwall (michael_a_dingwall@hotmail.com)

In the United States, for example, many young college women sell their eggs for the money. Many of them clearly need the money and, in some respects, instead of selling themselves, they can sell only a part of themselves - their eggs. Some of these women get up to US $8, 000 for a sale. Some of these women who are assessed to be very intelligent can get up to US $35,000 for a sale. It has been estimated that this “egg-selling” industry is sized at US four million dollars.

In addition to the financial rewards that some of these women get, the women who buy them also benefit. Surely, the reason why these women buy these eggs is because, for one reason or another, their bodies cannot produce any or they cannot “hatch” any. As, such, these women can never have children. One can therefore imagine the joy of some of these women in being able to have a child of their own - through these purchased eggs. However, when these women give birth - are these children really theirs?

While it may be true that the bodies of the women who purchased these eggs nourished these babies - these women did not produce these eggs. What will the genetic composition of each of these babies be like? Will each of them have the combined DNA of the father and the woman who produced the egg or the father and the woman who nourished the egg? Or will the baby have the DNA of all three - effectively having one father and two mothers? Will the egg-purchasing mother really be the mother? How would she feel if she and the father were white but the child was black?

Like these egg-selling women, some men also sell their sperms to “sperm banks”. However, unlike the female recipients, the sperm being sold is not injected into another male to be used at will. The sperm is purchased and inserted directly into the woman who wants to be impregnated. Therefore, biologically speaking, there is no doubt about the child’s paternity. The father may not know it, but he did impregnate that woman - just not in the usual way.

While the recipients and donors of these eggs seem to be happy doing what they do. I, for one, have some serious concerns about this “egg-selling” business. However, there is very little doubt that as we humans continue to advance scientifically and technologically even more ethically controversial events will happen.

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