The debate continues about whether women should be paid for their eggs or whether we should undergo the weeks or months of hormone-induced emotional wretchedness, hours of medical visits, significant physical pain, and surgery and recovery time all for free. Because, you know, it's science!
Hrm. I guess we know where I stand on this one, eh?
This CNN article says that women spend 40 to 56 hours in medical offices as part of the egg-harvesting process. That's in addition to all the rest of it.
Some people believe that by offering compensation, they will skew the participants toward the poor, and that would result in exploiting poor women to serve wealthy women. But I think that's baloney. One ethicist says "You do not see many full professors or CEOs selling eggs to secretaries or housecleaners," but you know why? There's an age limit, at least when selling eggs for other couples to use. You're rarely a full professor or CEO before 30. Also, when would you have time?
Being an egg producer is a job. It involves emotional and physical labor. You need to have a certain temperament to do it well; you need to be able to handle the effects of the hormone treatment without plunging into depression or driving your husband to suicide with your mood swings. (If you've ever had a friend go through fertility treatments, you know what I'm talking about.)
This job requires commuting to and from doctors' offices, paying for parking and gas and so on. It might require arranging for child care. Certainly it has an element of physical risk. And you can't use those hours to do anything else. You don't just skip up to the hospital, pop into a bathroom for half an hour, then skip out with a few thousand dollars in your purse.
Pay 'em. Make it a job, screen candidates, and value the women's time and effort. I really don't see why that's so difficult to understand.
