selling eggs.

**vidcc** · 03-01-2006, 06:51 PM

PHOENIX — A House panel voted Thursday to criminalize the practice of buying and selling human eggs.
The 6-2 Judiciary Committee vote came after Rep. Bob Stump, R-Peoria, told colleagues that the methods used to harvest the eggs are potentially unsafe for women. Stump also said it is no more moral to sell human eggs than to sell body parts, a practice that already is illegal.
Part of his motive, he said, is to throw a roadblock into cloning research, a practice that often starts with human eggs.
House Bill 2142, which now goes to the full House, would subject violators, whether donors or companies that buy the eggs, to up to a year in jail.
Women could still donate eggs, whether for fertilization or research. But they could not get "money or other valuable consideration."
The call for human eggs, advertised in campus publications and some free weeklies, apparently can be lucrative: One company's classified ad says women can earn up to $24,000 for six separate egg donations.
"College women are targeted in particular," Stump said.
He said the practice of paying for eggs can also lead to the exploitation of poor women.
No one testified Thursday against the measure.

source

If men can sell sperm why shouldn't women be allowed to sell eggs, and in fact face a year in jail if they do?

Women could still donate eggs under this law (a state law) if it passes fully

Given that any donor would do so volutarily and has to be an adult and able to make the decision this smacks of sexism and in my mind yet another example of government interfering in private lives.

**Tempestv** · 03-01-2006, 07:16 PM

ya, gotta agree, far as I can tell, the only difference between this and donating sperm is that the women get a shitload more money. maybe that is why it was made illegial- male lawmakers were jealous.

**MagicNakor** · 03-01-2006, 07:20 PM

Well, that and donating eggs takes a medical procedure, while donating spem takes a more amateur route, thus making the former higher-risk.

Wouldn't this essentially make surrogacy illegal as well?

**vidcc** · 03-01-2006, 07:23 PM

I think the size of the financial reward may have more to do with the proceedure the woman goes through. It's not like she gets a room filled with porn and gets paid to do something men do for fun.................................

Edit...magicnakor posted whilst I was responding, sorry for the double up.

Edit2: Thinking about it

Stump also said it is no more moral to sell human eggs than to sell body parts, a practice that already is illegal.

I don't think this is valid either as the body doesn't tend to drop off "body parts" once a month. So what is the difference between a woman that remains unmarried and celibate thus allows her egg to "die" once a month and one that donates

**tantric** · 03-03-2006, 07:16 AM

Sperm?

Hell, what about blood or plasma?

A cell's a cell, isn't it?

**Busyman** · 03-03-2006, 07:26 AM

I find the ban on stem cell research equally dumb as shit.

Instead of harvesting stem cells from a fetus that would otherwise be thrown away, Bush says throw it away.

What a dumbshit.

edit: On what grounds does he ban the research anyway?

**Carcinus** · 03-03-2006, 02:58 PM

As a woman with no plans on having children, around 12 of my finite supply of eggs are wasted each year. If I could be paid for having some of them put to good use I would be happy to do so.

Every medical procedure carries a certain amount of risk. Kidney and other organ doners are praised for the risks they take. The procedure for extracting bone marrow from doners is a painful one, and even blood doners run the risk of accident or infection every time they go through venipuncture.

The statement "selling eggs is as immoral as selling body parts" is a spurious one because eggs serve no vital purpose to the woman until they are fertilised by sperm. They are no more little babies-in-waiting than each and every sperm is, yet there's no compunction about sperm being wasted. These look to me like flaky excuses propagated by religion thinly disguised as morality and social concern.