“Amendment 2 actually makes it a constitutional right for fertility clinics to pay women for eggs,” added Heaton. “Low-income women will be seduced by big checks.”
There is something about Patricia Heaton that I find irresitably hot (her and Selma Hayek) yet I am disturbed by the idea that she thinks we would be doing poor women a favor by preventing them from getting “big checks” for selling their eggs. All surgery has risks but I know more than a few female grad studentswho sold their eggs and it helped them immeasurably. I don’t know how I feel about the idea of intentionally creating embryos in a petri dish to harvest for stem cell research but if that is your argument then stick to it.
Assuming this refers to Missouri’s, 2006 Ballot Measure, Constitutional Amendment 2, Stem Cell Initiative, it would appear to be a lie![right]Thanks Aholibah[/right]
There is actually some precedent for this; for instance the Red Cross or similar blood-donation companies not paying for blood donations as this could encourage unqualified people to lie about their history (not an issue with the for-profit companies that do plasma collections, I gather), and medical research involving patients with various diseases is often monitored by research committees seeking to ensure that there isn’t a “coercive” amount of money being paid to participants. I haven’t seen Heaton’s argument on the topic but just wanted to suggest some possibly analogous cases.
The difference being that blood donations are far likelier to carry communicable diseases than are unfertilized eggs.
Any law that prohibits women from selling their eggs is every bit as awful as a blanket ban on abortion. It is just as much a violation of a woman’s right to choose. Actually, it might be worse. It’s horrifying that any thinking person would support such a thing.
Is it also illegal in that state for men to sell their sperm?
What stands out to me is that she says (or someone says- I’m too lazy to watch it again) that there are 25 deaths a year from the egg harvesting procedure. My response? “Twenty five! Oh noes! Like, 15,000 people die a year in car accidents. . . let’s ban cars too!”
Oh, and the fact that they’ve got pseudo Jesus in there speaking (what’s he saying there in the beginning?) is definitely eye roll-a-rific.
How do you figure? I can’t sell my kidney on e-bay. Is that a horrifying imposition on my right to control of my own body? How is that different from selling an egg?
Not that I’m arguing against letting women sell their eggs. Or their kidneys, for that matter. I’m just having a hard time seeing the ban as “awful,” or something that no “thinking person” could possibly support.
I don’t see how that difference is applicable to the debate, though, except that I’d expect my kidney to fetch a much higher price than someone’s egg, given that I don’t have as many kidneys to hock.
Well, it’s presumably the difference that selling one egg or even several will have no noticeable impact on the person’s life, therefore isn’t nearly such a drastic sacrifice as a kidney. This rather reduces the concerns of exploitation and necessity which are at the heart of organ sale prohibition, unless we can point to some intrinsic characteristic of an egg that makes it more sacred than anything else we’re blessed with hundreds of. I could probably grow my hair a foot long, cut it off and sell it only a couple of hundred times in my life; should I be forbidden from doing that, too? Is it anything to do with our bodies that we’re averse to commercially exploiting, or just certain organs? Which ones, and why?
For that matter, if number and availability is irrelevant, it should surely be illegal for men to donate sperm in exchange for cash, right? I mean, we’ve got positively billions to work with, but that’s not relevant. Or is it?
Badger, I’m not arguing that women shouldn’t be allowed to sell their eggs. I’m questioning the characterization of such a ban as “horrifying,” “awful,” a “violation,” and something “no thinking person” could support.
(Although I’d also point out that donating hair or sperm does not require a medical procedure, so that comparison doesn’t entirely work, either.)
That doesn’t change the other precedent, that that institutions performing medical research on patients have boards that (among other factors examined) things like subject payments examined as to whether they are “coercively” high. If allowed, this could lead to poor patients overlooking risks or even lying about medical history or experiencing side effects that might get them yanked off the study - subject payments, when done, are typically pro-rated such that they will get more money the longer they remain with the study.
As I noted before, I’m just saying that there is a precedent about worrying about what payment may cause desperate people to do to their bodies that they might not if it were not offered.
As to your comment about how “awful” this is, I will just say that I’m a woman who has marched, both in my home state and in Washington DC, in support of reproductive rights, and yet I simply cannot find the level of horror about this that you do. I do feel that there are other aspects to consider, and certainly don’t put it on the same level as women driven to undergo “backalley abortions.”
I’m not positive, but I don’t think that they’re worried about them donating too much blood and harming themselves, they are worried about them lying and then ending up with blood that they can’t use. It is a hassle and a waste of time for them, it is not because they care about the person. I’m not sure what you were talking about with the research studies, but I think they are more worried that their results will be skewed than that their researchees will come to harm in some manner.
How come no one is trying to “protect” people from desperately sitting on their asses in a cube farm for 8 hours, miserably listening to whiners and staring at a computer screen which they otherwise would not subject themselves to if money wasn’t offered?
I’m on a review board for a medical center that does research, and regarding studies, the concern of the board is in fact that research subjects may come to harm. These boards have to approve all studies at a medical center before they can be performed.
Researchers who set up their study at their institution may adjust their subject payments (when they’re done; they’re not given out for all studies) higher to try to recruit more subjects, or lower them if they are concerned about undue coercement.
My impression of the summary of Heaton’s comments was “if you let women sell eggs, poor women are going to be so desperate for thousands of dollars that they’ll put their bodies through things that they might not do otherwise” which matches up with my experience in dealing with medical research and concerns over subject payments.
My understanding is that there are laws against it, as well. Am I incorrect?
I’m amenable to this position, but that doesn’t really answer my question to you. Which, again, is “How is outlawing the sale of eggs equivalent to outlawing abortion?”
I don’t see how the available supply affects the moral/ethical implications of the ban of such sales.