Civil War over eggs?

Our two beloved Pac-10 universities, Oregon State University and the University of Oregon, are in constant competition with one another for state domination and bragging rights. If it’s not football then it’s basketball, baseball, choice of majors and so on. The list is endless, with new categories being added all the time. The latest and probably most controversial topic is the notion that OSU students are compensated more for egg donation at fertility clinics than U of O students.

An article published on April 1 in the Portland Tribune reported on advertisements in both schools’ student-run newspapers—OSU’s Daily Barometer‘s ad offered $5,000, while the ad in U of O’s Daily Emerald offered $4,000.

Gary Dulude, a marketing employee for OSU, was quoted in the article saying, “There must be a perception that there are smarter students here.” Perceive it however you want, but admission requirements to attend either school are exactly the same.

However, some claim that egg compensation advertisements statewide show an even flat rate.

“This reporter knows full well that compensation for egg donors at Oregon State University and University of Oregon is exactly the same and always has been the same,” said Jonathan Kipp, marketing director for Oregon Reproductive Medicine/Exceptional Donors. “The reporter and I talked at length about why the study had it wrong, in Oregon at least “The compensation for egg donors, recruited and approved by Oregon Reproductive Medicine’s Exceptional Donors Program…has always, and is always, exactly the same. That rate is currently $6,000.”

The study Kipp is referring to is one recently done by Georgia Tech professor Aaron Levine, whose findings seem to confirm that fertility-challenged couples were willing to pay more for egg donors that were smart. Recently published in the March/April issue of the Hasting Center Report, the study examined ads in student newspapers and found that the amount a clinic and/or broker was willing to pay was determined by the average SAT scores the school accepted. Some schools, especially Ivy League schools, reported to offer up to $50,000 as compensation. This is in violation of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s guidelines, which discourage any compensation amount over $10,000 and compensation based on personal characteristics, such as being smart. Obviously, as the study also points out, currently there is no checks and balances system to regulate this discouragement, and it is often ignored.

High price tags seem to be intended to lure struggling college females as a way to offer them more stability and make them neglect the fine print of complications that can occur as a result of the offer. The money offered covers about a four-month process which one must undergo before harvesting the eggs, which is a 20–30 minute minor operation.

In today’s society it is understandable for a woman to want to exhaust every opportunity to be able to do what she was made to do—give life. But what about the hundreds of thousands of children already born into the world without parents to raise them? What about the horrific steps an egg donor has to partake in once she is selected?

Choosing donors, egg or sperm for certain characteristics as a high IQ is no better than Hitler’s goal of fostering a superior race. Couples who can conceive naturally don’t get to pick their child’s characteristics, so why are couples that can’t conceive naturally doing so?