Sunday's Chicago Tribune included a front page, above- and below-the-fold article on the "booming" human egg "donation" business.
Women are being paid $5k-$13k and up to $100k for 15-20 eggs and are using the money to pay off loans and credit cards and put down payments on properties. So the word "donor" is incorrect.
In the last eight years, the number of infertile couples purchasing human eggs has tripled, to the point where "some agencies find they have more donors than recipients," according to the article, which raised a red flag to me among many.
Legislators across the country (CA, IL, and NJ, for example) are introducing bills mandating taxpayer funded human embryo experimentation that include flagrantly deceptive language appearing to prohibit human cloning while they actually authorize it. (From the bills: "somatic cell nuclear transfer"; Google that term.)
The rationale for escr so often given is to put human embryos to good use who would otherwise be discarded by IVF clinics. Truth be told, only 2.8% of embryos are actually available for experimentation, but nonetheless, the day will come when legislators come clean about cloning, and they will use the same rationale to morally condone it that they now use for embryo experimentation.
In fact, cloning researchers are already complaining about a shortage of human eggs, and they readily admit they go to IVF clinics for them. (Read NPR, JournalLive, and BioEd, for examples.)
Because of this, I found it remarkable that the lengthy Tribune article did not once mention the increasing demands by researchers for human eggs.
