2006年VOA标准英语-Egg Donor Business Booming on College Campuses

By Mil Arcega
Washington, D.C.
13 June 2006
 
Watch Fertility Report

Egg fertilization in a laboratory  
  
Last year, infertile 1 couples in the U.S. spent nearly $3 billion to improve their chances of having babies. They also paid out more than $38 million for egg donations, a procedure that's become both popular and controversial as fertility clinics and brokers 2 bid for the best and brightest egg donors 3.

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Colleges offer some of the best gene 4 pools for infertile couples looking for smart young women willing to donate their eggs. And ads, found in many college newspapers, can speed the search by offering cash-strapped students thousands of dollars, "for a few good eggs."

 
Carrie Sprecht
  
Carrie Specht answered one of the ads eight years ago when she was a struggling student at New York University. "I'm not going to kid anybody; the dollar signs were there first and foremost." Because it's illegal to sell body parts in the U.S., the money is considered a fee for a woman's time and inconvenience.

Professor Deborah Spar, author of the "Baby Business", a book that looks at the economics of conception, says any way you look at it, it's still a cash transaction. "They are not donating eggs -- in most cases, they are selling them. Yes, it's a miraculous 5 science, but there's also commerce."

 
Deborah Spar 
  
It's a profitable bit of commerce for donors with high demand characteristics such as top academic scores, athletic 6 ability and good looks.

Carrie wound up donating four times, using some of the money to start a film company, which she aptly named Zygot Films. "I do know there are at least three children out there that are carrying my DNA 7," she says. "I like it a lot, I like the idea that I have longevity 8."

Shannon Clark  
  
Not everyone feels the same way. Shannon Clark was a college sophomore 9 when she donated an egg to a relative. Now ten years later and pregnant with her first child, she has regret.

"As I grow older and more mature and started to have maternal 10 instincts and feelings of my own," she says, "I realized, wow, this wasn't just DNA, this was my child, I gave to my aunt."

Industry watchdogs say there's currently very little government oversight 11 on the fertility industry and even fewer rules on egg donations, such as how many times a woman can donate or how much she should be paid. Deborah Spar wants a debate on the medical and ethical questions surrounding egg donations - a procedure that doctors say involves weeks of hormone injections and a small risk of long-term health problems