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It’s All About the Babies (and by “Babies” I mean “Unfertilized Eggs”)

Jill

You know how pro-choicers are always talking about that “control” thing, and asserting that the anti-choice movement isn’t about saving babies as much as it’s about telling women what they can and cannot do with their reproductive functions? And you know how anti-choicers will argue that it’s not about control, it really is about little babies and something is a “baby” as soon as a sperm meets an egg, and a fertilized egg has it’s own unique DNA and it will (in theory) grow into a full human being if offered the right conditions, and really we promise we have no interest in telling women what to do with their uteruses and eggs as long as there’s no little baby involved?

Yeah, they’re liars.

State representatives voted Monday to make it illegal for a woman to sell her eggs, but they refused to impose similar restrictions on men selling their sperm.

On a voice vote, the House of Representatives said that a woman who sells her eggs could be sent to prison for up to a year and fined up to $150,000. The same penalty would apply to any organization or doctor who made the purchase.

Because… we love babies?

No, not so much — we love punishing women. And sending them and their doctors to jail, apparently. And it’s not even for having sex this time, it’s just for being women and having eggs.

Rep. Bob Stump, R-Peoria, said both measures are necessary to protect the health of women.

Ah yes. Us little ladies really need protectin’, and big daddy government is the best entity to do this. Now, I could throw it out there that more men have had fatal complications from Viagra than women have had from egg donation, but I feel like that wouldn’t be particularly persuasive to Rep. Stump and his egg-obsessed pals.

via Broadsheet.

57 thoughts on It’s All About the Babies (and by “Babies” I mean “Unfertilized Eggs”)

  2. I’ve donated eggs a couple of times. There’s a whole legal fiction around the payment — I wasn’t paid for the eggs themselves, but I was compensated for my time and trouble (which was considerable, and involved needles. Lots of needles). Of course, the more viable eggs collected, the higher the payment.

    So this isn’t entirely off the wall, unless they’re banning any sort of payment at all.

  3. Pingback: The Naked Truth » Blog Archive » Arizona’s Battle of the Sexes

  4. They are trying to make it about the health of the woman, as in the drugs can make you ill. It is true that the drugs can make you ill, dangerously so, if you are not properly monitored. I would know, having had five rounds of IVF/ICSI with lots of drugs. Its still a bogus argument however. Its the individuals right to choose whether or not to take the risk, once informed of all of the risks. Also, these days these procedures and drugs are very common with many doctors havign a lot of experience in this, so the rate of complications is quite low.

  5. Our society has always been uncomfortable with egg donation. The idea that a man could donate his genetic material and be unsentimental about the possible biological children is fine, but women just aren’t supposed to be like that.

    Then there’s the scorn heaped on couples who seek “Ivy League eggs” or the like. Looking for a female donor based on (presumed) intelligence is a direct affront to how many people think of reproduction — men are desirable for their intelligence and talents, women for their looks and fertility.

  6. I find it interesting that he’s worried the eggs are going to become destroyed embryos. Let’s hereby acknowledge that sperm are also required for embryo formation.

  7. Let’s hereby acknowledge that sperm are also required for embryo formation.

    Arizona lawmakers: “D’oh!”

    Perhaps they need better sex-ed in Arizona.

  8. What are the stats on women dying from (complications from) egg donation, anyway?

    I’m sure there are risks, but are they really that much worse than those from, say, bone marrow or kidney donation?

  9. puellasolis,

    Bone marrow and kidney donation are probably not good analogies. You are right to point out the risks involved in those procedures (and kidney donation can be particularly dangerous), but those procedures differ from eggs because they are legal only when they are a donation. IOW, you cannot legally sell a kidney or some marrow.

    This law puts egg donation on the same level with other organ donation laws (yes, I know eggs aren’t organs). You can donate them, but not sell them.

  10. Um, yeah. This would protect my health how? Fuckers.

    If they really want to protect my health, make abortions services safe, legal and covered by insurance. Make sure I (and all women) have access to safe, affordable contraception and sex education. In fact, make sure we have access to quality, affordable health coverage, period! That will protect my health, not keeping me from selling my eggs.

  11. They are trying to make it about the health of the woman, as in the drugs can make you ill. It is true that the drugs can make you ill, dangerously so, if you are not properly monitored. I would know, having had five rounds of IVF/ICSI with lots of drugs. Its still a bogus argument however. Its the individuals right to choose whether or not to take the risk, once informed of all of the risks. Also, these days these procedures and drugs are very common with many doctors havign a lot of experience in this, so the rate of complications is quite low.

    I can honestly say I don’t remember ever being advised of the long-term risks of egg donation, such as increased (IIRC) risk of ovarian cancer from the drugs used. But this was 10-13 years ago. And no, I didn’t get no $24,000.

  12. “I would wager there’s not one recorded instance of someone dying from donating or selling sperm,” Stump declared during the House floor debate. “In fact, it’s more dangerous for a man to cross the street than to donate sperm.”

    I look forward to new legislation from Stumpy, proposing the banning of men from crossing the street to “protect their health”. In fact, I think it’s probably not safe for them to go out at all. Do do so would just be “asking for it”, don’t you think?

  13. A quick search of Medline failed to disclose so much as a case report of any woman dying as at least as a direct result of donating oocytes. That doesn’t mean it’s never happened, but it appears to be extremely rare. I wouldn’t say that it is impossible that a man ever died from sperm donation either. Suppose he had diabetes, leading to erectile dysfunction and heart disease and took viagra in order to be able to donate? Serious risk for an MI and other cardiac complications, including sudden death, right there. (What a sperm bank would be doing accepting such a man’s donation I don’t know, but that’s a different issue.) Anyway, isn’t the whole point behind informed consent the assumption that a reasonable person can decide for him or herself what risks he or she is willing to take? Can’t women give informed consent as well as men?

  14. zuzu,

    I’ve donated eggs a couple of times. There’s a whole legal fiction around the payment

    If you’re ever inclined to write about that experience, or what followed, I for one would be very interested in reading your thoughts on the matter.

  15. Jill,
    After reading your post I thought that prolife organizations were behind this (and maybe they are) but the article you link to doesn’t mention any prolife organizations.

    How are women being punished for just “being women and having eggs?”

    It would be nice if you could take this issue seriously instead of trying to create obvious strawman “prolife” arguments to blow over. From my memory (and I could be mistaken) there are a few feminist organizations who are strongly opposed to selling eggs. If a feminist organization was opposed to selling eggs would they be trying to punish women?

  16. Some people who consider themselves feminists are opposed to selling eggs. I think they’re worried about poor women being exploited. Do they want to punish women? I think there is some element of wanting to punish the stereotypically affluent, older couples who have this procedure done, and they don’t realize how nicely these arguments dovetail with antifeminist ideas about selfish yuppie career women. The same thing goes for feminists who are opposed to hiring a housecleaner.

  18. Jill:

    There’s a difference between questioning egg donation and legislating against it.

    When you get a second could you explain more about this?

    Opposing egg donation is okay.

    Banning egg donation is not.

    Is this just a free-speech issue? Feminists are free to disapprove of the procedure, but legislators should not act on that disapproval?

  19. I’m not sure I’m getting from the article that they’re banning egg donation, or even preventing payment. It could be that they’re explicitly outlawing payment for selling eggs — which, as I said upthread a bit, was certainly the standard 13 or so years ago when I donated eggs in Connecticut. Since then, of course, you’ve gone from a situation where donor eggs were pretty much only available through clinics to a situation where donors are being sought on Craigslist and offered huge sums of money.

    As long as they’re trying to rein in practices that could, conceivably, be used to justify the outright sale of other body parts or tissues, I’m okay with that. It would also be helpful to know what the policy on sperm donation and blood donation is, or if those are considered both renewable and their retrieval non-invasive.

    If I’m not mistaken, sperm donation, given how easy and non-invasive it is, is not highly compensated. Egg donation takes several months, involves numerous trips to the hospital or clinic for blood tests, ultrasounds and monitoring, requires daily self-injections of fertility drugs that increase the chance of accidental pregnancy and entail large needles. Accordingly, the additional time, trouble and pain mean that the payment is much greater. If Arizona is trying to prevent payment of any kind to egg donors, then we have a very big problem (and we will very likely no longer have anonymous donors).

  20. I see this issue as falling completely under the rubric of “reproductive freedom.” How is this any different from access to abortion, access to contraceptives, access to gynocological care, etc?

    This may be a scary step towards what they have in Canada, where they ban payment for eggs, register IVF kids into a government database, and have far more restrictions on assisted reproduction. There are a good many Canadian couples who come to the US for their fertility treatments. What happens when we close off these freedoms?

  21. As long as they’re trying to rein in practices that could, conceivably, be used to justify the outright sale of other body parts or tissues, I’m okay with that.

    I’m actually not entirely clear on why it’s ok to sell eggs but not other body parts. You’re right that banning the sale of eggs would lead to a severe shortage, just like there’s a severe shortage of all sorts of other organs and tissue at the moment. What’s the difference?

    This isn’t a trick question. I’m instinctively more squicked by the idea of selling a kidney than selling an egg. But I’m not sure I can justify it rationally. It’s true that it’s more dangerous to donate a kidney, but it’s a difference of degree and not kind, I think.

  22. Presumably, Canada has greater restrictions on assisted reproduction because the government funds health care. Assisted reproduction is hella expensive, even when it does work.

  23. I’m actually not entirely clear on why it’s ok to sell eggs but not other body parts. You’re right that banning the sale of eggs would lead to a severe shortage, just like there’s a severe shortage of all sorts of other organs and tissue at the moment. What’s the difference?

    The legal fiction is that you’re not actually selling the eggs, per se. You’re being compensated for the considerable time and expense and discomfort involved in producing the eggs. Also, eggs, being cells, are quite a bit different from, say, your kidney, which is not going to grow back.

  24. Assisted reproduction in Canada is not covered by health care. Only the normal delivery (natural or caesarian) as well as care during the pregnancy is covered.

    Take the Kass Commision’s philosophy, strip out the religious mumbo-jumbo and substitute liberal mumbo-jumbo about commodifaction and human value and you end up in the same restrictive end-state.

  25. Personally, I don’t really care whether selling oocytes (they’re not actually eggs yet) is legal or not. As long as the same rules apply to selling sperm. Either gamete selling is legal or it isn’t. Either is, IMHO, fine. The double standard of “sperm selling-ok, oocyte selling-bad” is not.

  26. The double standard of “sperm selling-ok, oocyte selling-bad” is not.

    Well, yeah. But it’s really hard to tell from the linked article what the exact status of each is.

    It’s also a good idea not to create markets in body parts, or you wind up with cases like we had recently in New York, where a funeral director or morgue attendant or assistant ME (I forget which) was taking apart cadavers and selling certain parts, like teeth for dental implants and other bits and bobs. If I’m not mistaken, this is the same person who wound up, somehow, with Alistair Cooke’s brain.

  27. I get the legal fiction bit, but it is a legal fiction. We all know that what’s really going on is the buying and selling of body parts. As far as I know, we don’t allow that kind of legal fiction when it comes to any other body part, including those that regenerate. (Can you sell your bone marrow? I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. You definitely can’t sell a piece of your liver, and the whole idea behind live liver donation is that a partial liver can regenerate.) It seems to me that the difference has as much to do with the purpose of the donation as with the nature of the tissue. We’re more comfortable with selling body parts for reproduction than with selling body parts to heal sick people, for some reason.

  28. Well, another thing is that liver and bone marrow transplants are covered by insurance, so that there’s no room for a donor payment. Until fairly recently, IVF was not covered by insurance, so payments could be made to whoever.

  29. Well, another thing is that liver and bone marrow transplants are covered by insurance, so that there’s no room for a donor payment. Until fairly recently, IVF was not covered by insurance, so payments could be made to whoever.

    I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, since as you point out, IVF is now covered by insurance, and yet donors are still paid. As I understand it, many bone marrow donor recipients find their own donors. (I’m not paying much attention these days, but when I was an undergrad, there were periodic drives for particular people in which members of particular ethnic groups were asked to get tested to see if they were a match. These drives were funded by the patient or his or her friends and supporters.) I don’t think insurance companies would forbid people to find their own donors, using whatever resources they had available to them.

  30. As long as they’re trying to rein in practices that could, conceivably, be used to justify the outright sale of other body parts or tissues, I’m okay with that.

    Confusion. If we have bodily autonomy, why can’t we sell our body parts?

  31. particular ethnic groups were asked to get tested to see if they were a match

    What? ? ? ? Aren’t we all taught that race is a social construct ?

  32. As I understand it, many bone marrow donor recipients find their own donors.

    There is now a national registry of people who volunteer to be bone marrow donors, if they are needed. You can find out more about becoming a donor (or a recipient for that matter) here: http://www.marrow.org/ if you are interested. Most recipients do find their own donors though, in the sense that transplants from related donors tend to do better than those from unrelated donors so most people get their sibs, parents, etc to donate if they can. But there’s still a need for unrelated donors: lots of people don’t have an HLA matched relative willing to donate. (Sorry about the only peripherally on topic post, but it’s really for a good cause.)

  33. Confusion. If we have bodily autonomy, why can’t we sell our body parts?

    42 USC sec. 274e
    “It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human organ for valuable consideration for use in human transplantation if the transfer affects interstate commerce.”

    I hate to be the one to tell you this, but…you don’t have bodily autonomy.

    The purposes behind the National Organ Transplant Act include prohibition on sales of organs because selling would not be ‘fair’ for people who couldn’t pay for an organ. Instead everyone goes on a list which is rarely any better than a ‘first come, first served’ queue.

  34. Oocytes are not organs; neither is blood. So that complicates things.

    What? ? ? ? Aren’t we all taught that race is a social construct ?

    Tell that to Rod Carew. I’m sure it will be a comfort to know that his daughter is dead because an appropriate racial match was not found for her particular condition, given that she was black and Jewish.

  35. Make that, “I’m sure it will be a comfort to know that even though his daughter is dead because an appropriate racial match was not found for her particular condition, given that she was black and Jewish, race is just a construct.”

  36. Aren’t we all taught that race is a social construct ?

    That was sarcasm, I’m sure, but race is taught that way in many universities (well, okay, I only know about the two that I’ve attended). I had one professor for WWII military history who on the first day told us “In my class, race is a social construct. This is not a topic for debate. Also notice on the syllabus…” I’m still kinda wondering why he bothered to preface his class with that since we never even came close to discussing the implications of segregation and desegregation in the military.

  37. I agree with most of the posters here. I actually know someone who got pregnant using donor eggs and have considered donating mine but as of yet have been too scared about the big needles and drugs. I know the fertility clinic near me offers a compensation of 4000 dollars, but it’s not for your actual eggs, it’s for going through the months of testing, bloodwork, ultrasounds, daily injections, etc… So, if it’s just saying it’s illegal to coerce you into selling your body parts, but not illegal to compensate you for the time and trouble to go through the egg donation process, I guess that’s not a huge deal. If they are saying there can be no compensation at all for egg donation, but there can be for sperm donation then that is a huge double standard and is not acceptable under any circumstance. I personally don’t see the problem with either one… they help women who want to be mothers do so in a way that all people involved in are obviously ok with.

  38. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but…you don’t have bodily autonomy.

    Well, nuts. Guess I’ll have to get the legislature’s permission for that abortion, then.

  40. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but…you don’t have bodily autonomy.

    Well, nuts. Guess I’ll have to get the legislature’s permission for that abortion, then.

    Whut? You don’t want the big bucks for the rights to your True Story(TM) of being the first man to complete a pregnancy?

  41. Whut? You don’t want the big bucks for the rights to your True Story(TM) of being the first man to complete a pregnancy?

    And support the patriarchal media-press complex in their efforts to control my uterus? I don’t THINK so.

  42. I don’t mean to play thread nanny, but this is an interesting discussion, and I’d be sad if we let the usual suspects derail it. Can we talk about whether race is a social construct somewhere else?

  43. Oocytes are not organs; neither is blood. So that complicates things

    Yeah, and I think the only reason that you can’t sell your blood is that paying people for blood caused really big problems in the early days of AIDS. Basically, it gave desperate people, such as IV drug users, incentive to lie about their risk factors. If it weren’t for that, you could probably still get paid for donating blood. So maybe there is some sort of fundamental distinction between organs and other body parts.

  44. Yeah, and I think the only reason that you can’t sell your blood is that paying people for blood caused really big problems in the early days of AIDS

    So shouldn’t you also not be able to sell sperm for the same reason? HIV can be readily transmitted through sperm. Why aren’t the AZ legislators interested in protecting women from HIV contracted through sperm donation from donors who sold their sperm even though they knew that they were at high risk for HIV because they needed the money? On the other hand, sperm can be frozen and stored until the 6 month post-donation HIV test comes back negative–or thrown out if it’s positive– so maybe it’s not such a huge concern.

    Incidently, you can still “sell” your blood (or rather, be compensated for your time and trouble) if you donate blood for research purposes.

  45. Bodily autonomy should be literal. I should be able to sell a kidney if I so choose. I should be able to prostitute myself and euthanize myself and so on. I’m not sure how any of those things are anybody else’s business.

  46. For most medical procedures that you under go for testing, there’s a standard payment. Blood draws rate a certain dollar amount, spinal taps a lot more. It’s a very well established concept in human subjects research.

    There are a couple of problems with essentially bribing people for costs not associated with “time and inconvenice”. First, you want their free and informed consent. It’s hard to get informed consent when someone’s dangling $25,000 in front of a broke college student. Second, it strongly reinforces prejudicial cultural preferences. If you’ve seen the ads asking for a white, blue-eyed supermodel with 1500+ on the SAT, you’ll know what I mean.

    Finally, race is a cultural construct, but it’s sometimes a useful proxy for histological matching required in organ and bone marrow transplants. People with unusual racial backgrounds are less likely to find compatible donors.

  47. Bodily autonomy should be literal.

    Hooray, someone with the courage of their convictions. Let us gather now to praise people of intellectual consistency and indeterminate gender.

  48. First, you want their free and informed consent. It’s hard to get informed consent when someone’s dangling $25,000 in front of a broke college student.

    This is true of all economic transactions. The alternative is state control of the economy, so that no bad decisions get made. It doesn’t work very well.

    Second, it strongly reinforces prejudicial cultural preferences. If you’ve seen the ads asking for a white, blue-eyed supermodel with 1500+ on the SAT, you’ll know what I mean.

    So? People have preferences. Who are we to question their choices when it comes to such personal matters?

  49. Finally, race is a cultural construct,

    Yeah, people can keep saying that, but . . .

    What makes the current study, published in the February issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, more conclusive is its size. The study is by far the largest, consisting of 3,636 people who all identified themselves as either white, African-American, East Asian or Hispanic. Of these, only five individuals had DNA that matched an ethnic group different than the box they checked at the beginning of the study. That’s an error rate of 0.14 percent.

    [ . . . . . . ]

    Without knowing how the participants had identified themselves, Risch and his team ran the results through a computer program that grouped individuals according to patterns of the 326 signposts. This analysis could have resulted in any number of different clusters, but only four clear groups turned up. And in each case the individuals within those clusters all fell within the same self-identified racial group.

    “This shows that people’s self-identified race/ethnicity is a nearly perfect indicator of their genetic background,” Risch said.

  50. The salient idiot points of this legislation:

    1) Women who sell eggs can be jailed and given a six-figure fine. Men who sell sperm, who cares?

    2) The purported reason for the ban is the health of the seller. The exact same risks exist for donors.

    I wonder if the good Representative has figure out that Arizona women will simply cross state lines to sell eggs.

  51. Truly ridiculous law. Rightly deserving of snark.

    Some thoughts on organ donations:

    1) I’m actually all for harvesting any and all necessary organs from dead people. I mean, I would prefer if my body was covered in gold and placed upon a 1000′ tall pedestal after death, but what a big fucking waste of resources that would be. If not compulsory, at the very least the default state should be: “You can take everything after death” instead of: “You cannot take anything if I haven’t done the paperwork”. Rights of the living should thus trump big time over the rights of the dead.

    This is somewhat disrespectful and radical viewpoint, but I can live with that.

    2 While I am not, even though I have huge reservations toward it, opposed to free selling of organs, some donations, such as relatively easy and harmless (for the donor, with experienced staff) blood donation works better without economic free market system, because a voluntary system gets better blood (as opposed to blood from down-to-luck people like drug addicts. I know there is testing, but sometimes mistakes happen. As Isaac Asimov found out. 🙁 ), thus the giving blood is good -meme should be spread. I have personally already bled a total half bucket of blood (4,5 litres) for free at this point at the local Red Cross clinic, and I’m still young.

  52. So I suppose one could say I’m a bleeding-heart liberal, even if my liberalism is sort of paleoliberalism, considering liberal is synonymous with leftist nowadays.

  53. Yeah, people can keep saying that, but . . .

    …but “race” doesn’t follow any of the rules of genetics. If a black person and a white person mate, the child is considered black. If a white person and an asian person mate, the child is considered asian. (Well, maybe race is co-dominant.) But if a black person and an asian person mate, the child is still black. (So much for co-dominance.) We can describe race in terms of “1/8th American Indian” but that kind of fractioning doesn’t make sense; as a diplod organism you’re either half something, or none of it. You only have two copies of each chromosome.

    C’mon, TangoMan. Of course there are physical characteristics that we associate with race. We don’t call them “black” people because that’s their favorite color. But when we can’t agree even on how many races there are, or how race is supposed to sort through offspring, that’s a pretty good indication that this “race” business has its basis more in cultural convention than in any genetic reality.

  54. This is true of all economic transactions. The alternative is state control of the economy, so that no bad decisions get made. It doesn’t work very well.

    And, your point? Informed consent in human subjects research is qualitatively different from routine economic transactions. If you’ve got access to JAMA, I’ll point you to some outstanding pieces on this.

  55. I’m actually all for harvesting any and all necessary organs from dead people. I mean, I would prefer if my body was covered in gold and placed upon a 1000′ tall pedestal after death, but what a big fucking waste of resources that would be. If not compulsory, at the very least the default state should be: “You can take everything after death” instead of: “You cannot take anything if I haven’t done the paperwork”. Rights of the living should thus trump big time over the rights of the dead.

    what about people whose faith dictates that their bodies must be whole for proper burial?

  56. emily1:

    I acknowledge that my position is very disrespectful, toward (some) religions mostly. I don’t know which ones. I suppose I’m just not very religiously sensitive or something like that. (Must suck for them if they die of body-destroying accident.)

    I also provided a possible cop-out that I would be willing to consider (the person who wants to buried whole does the damn paperwork explaining his/her reasons, instead of people who would prudently, and unselfishly let their organs used to save actual living people being the ones forced to do paperwork.)

  57. Chet,

    Of course there are physical characteristics that we associate with race.

    This is an “0f course” moment to you and me, but I could tell you horror stories about how very well educated people have bought the race is a social construction framing, hook, liine and sinker. There’s no denying that layered on top of the biology are all sorts of kooky cultural perceptions. Look, when I argue against a doctoral student in chemistry (who is extremely well read in the works of Gould, Lewontin, Rose) who is trying to tell me that a Pygmy and a Jew are more closely related than two Jews and starts invoking Lewontin’s Fallacy as a basis for his argument, then that tells me that there are a whole lot of Leftist Creationists out there who are working under some funky impressions of what race means. What is usually happening is these people are adopting this position because they think it is more sophisticated than the one that the yokels hold, but they seem to block out the biology completely. It has more to do with liberal self-image than it does with sophisticated understanding of the pertinent issues.

    But when we can’t agree even on how many races there are

    Most population geneticists agree on the definition of continental races. Then, when you start looking at the correlation structure of the genome you can start parsing even more finely. Think of it this way, the fact that you can’t define how many families exist in the world, nor what the boundaries of a family are, doesn’t mean that families don’t exist. As the Risch study demonstrates people’s self-selection agrees almost totally to their genetic history.

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