Just sat down – finally – to read my weekly indulgence of the Sunday Times (it’s pretty dear at £2!), and was hit right between the eyes by this headline:
IVF doctors to raffle human egg
Read on, it gets better:
The winner will be able to pick the egg donor by racial background, upbringing and education. Payment for profit is illegal in Britain, but the £13,000 of free IVF treatment will be provided in America.
The raffle, to be held on Wednesday, is to promote a tie-up between the Bridge Centre, a fertility clinic in London, and the Genetics and IVF Institute (GIVF) in Fairfax, Virginia.
Friends of the perfect white Aryan race eat your hearts out. Oh wait, maybe you’re all saving that for dessert? Think I’m crazy?
Overweight women or smokers are not accepted onto the donation program.
Fatties and smokers need not apply, thank you very much.
Women egg donors in America can make £6600 ($10000) a time if they are well educated and with desirable physical characteristics.
Hope they didn’t go to the LSE.
But it doesn’t really hurt anyone, does it? Well, apart from the lasting damage done to the developers’ souls and the souls of the donors, there’s always this:
These women selling their eggs are taking a huge risk with their health and fertility simply because they need the money.
This, according to the founder of Comment on Reproductive ethics, Josephine Quintaville.
But I’m just overreacting because that’s my job as a quasi-catholic, right? Yeah, you’re probably right. Oh, wait a minute. Check out what this egg recipient had to say:
I wanted someone who looked a bit like me as an adult, but the main consideration was the quality of her eggs…I don’t want anyone to know these babies are not mine. Not my family or any of my friends. We don’t intend to tell the children, either.
So, just share a private giggle when your mates coo over the baby that has “her Mummy’s eyes”?
This program doesn’t hurt anyone at all, really. Apart from the children, parents, donors and program administrators, along with anyone else who is moved to support such programs.
But, apart from that, it’s all good. Right?
If the “parent” has the ability to choose the child’s educational heritage, skin colour, disease predilection, hair colour, eye colour and any number of other variables, I’m left asking just one more question, with which I shall leave you. In whose image is this child made?
- CM
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Posted by: Charlemagne
Posted in: Asides - Atheism - Health - Parenting - Religion - Reproduction - Sex - The kidlet - Theology |