In 2005, the latest year for which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has data on egg donation, some 134,260 women had assisted reproductive procedures. Of those, 16,161 women, or 12 percent, received donated eggs. In 1995, there were 4,783 eggs used in 59,142 procedures, or 8 percent of the total. -from the Good Morning America website.
And this morning on GMA comes
more news: since the downturn in the economy, there has been an uptick in eggs and sperm donations--a 30 to 40 percent increase at fertility clinics. (If I could figure out how to have the video play from this site...I would.)
What this all means, of course, is that in 15 and 15 and 20 years, there will be more individuals looking for their biological roots. The reporter notes that the clinics are only keeping medical records for 10 years...and so that won't include diseases that show up later. But my question is: does that mean that after 10 years, the children born of these eggs won't be able to trace their roots?
All this is wrong,
prima facea, but I also know that the tide is against this old-fashioned opinion. And while maybe there will be fewer families able to afford someone else's eggs, someone else's sperm, and the services of a fertility clinic, there will be ever more ova and spermatozoa for sale during this recession. At the GMA website, there are a couple of other related videos, all the people say they probably wouldn't sell their ova (such a bother, weeks of hormone pills, and then shots) and sperm (well, that doesn't take too long) if it weren't for the money. But then someone adds, that they probably shouldn't do it if they are in it
only for the money.
Hypocrisy at work. It's worth nothing that in England where the sale of sperm has been outlawed, donations...are way down. Way down.
Why is the belief that this kind of baby-making unethical so against the times? Because today's child-bearing generation believe that pregnancy at 39 and up is no problem. Because they believe science will take care of anything. Because they are in denial. Because they are somehow convinced--until too late--that the dictums of biology do not apply to them.
In yesterday's New York Times was a piece in
Modern Love column of the Style Section in which the man writing says that his live-in girlfriend gave him an ultimatum for a proposal by a certain date. She's 35, her best reproductive years are already over, and she's giving this slacker an ultimatum several months away, while her biological clock is ticking ticking ticking....and he's having trouble doing the deed because of a 2.5 carat diamond ring in the family. Stay tuned. In a couple of years the writer will be asking for our pity as he extols the trials of trying to have a child when the mother is on the other side of 35, and then deciding to adopt.
Because it's all part of god's plan.
--lorraine
