Science Times: Egg Donors

The ads in the Brown Daily Herald always freaked me out. Couples were posting ads looking for attractive Ivy League women — often even including desired SAT score ranges, heights and weights — offering anywhere from $30,000 to $60,000 for egg donations.
I knew these ads were aimed at women just like me, faced with the prospect of college loan debt falling right in that price range. Seemed like a great idea sometimes, for sure, when classmates were taking semester-long trips to far-off destinations or taking fabulous unpaid internships in New York.
As good as the dollar signs may have looked, though, there were a lot of pitfalls that really bothered me, one being that I might actually be tempted to undergo a questionable procedure just for the money involved. Then there was the fact that rich couples were offering huge amounts of money because someone like me (if, I guess, I passed the smart and pretty muster) has desirable eggs. I always imagined my half-child somewhere in Westchester County, being fawned over by controlling, overbearing, overachieving suburbanites who probably wouldn’t let their expensively acquired little rascal run in the woods or enjoy childhood much, and who would put this same kid into high-cost SAT prep classes (which I didn’t take) to get into Harvard. And what would I say if this kid ever looked me up? “Sorry, kiddo, I had a bunch of debt and wanted to party like my friends from Westchester County.”
Yuck.

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