Letters posted here are associated with the following Salon Premium Member:

jrbrown10

Published Letters: 298
Editor's Choice: 13

Friday, July 31, 2009 11:58 PM
Original article: Eggsploitation revisited

Should we start selling kidneys on the open market now?

We don't sell kidneys for profit because it always leads to crimes against people, look at the India black market for IMMORAL people who want to jump the waiting list back home, they come to India and buy the parts or the babies, or eggs -- but it turns out the parts(kidneys) were taken from people who didn't want to give them up. WE DON"T sell body parts, or have a market for them, because it harms people who don't want to donate.

Plus the drugs that cause superovalation have no FDA medical studies behind them on donors, and are used off label, but after more than a decade of use, the medical problems with them are becoming clear, it is dangerous to use the drugs, they may cause the donor to lose her future ability to have children, and now it looks like there is very strong indicators that it causes cancers. Now the young women asked to donate are not told this, and can't be told, because no one knows just how high the danger is, because the studies were never done, because the fertility industry was afraid they would be told to not use the drugs.

And yes eggs have been stolen, University of Irvine California, got caught taking eggs without the donors knowledge - in the American Medical Associations own early studies in this area, they admitted to getting eggs from public assistance patients in the Chicago area hospitals without the donors consent or knowledge.

Creating a market for a very limit resource, creates crime - and endangers every woman. Like a kidney, the donor must be willing, and the money should not be a motivator. And like a kidney donor, the very real possible complications must be explained to the donor. Then by all means - folks should donate, (perhaps not by the super ovation method)- just an egg at a time.

As long as the cures they come up with don't require an ever growing need for eggs, but can establish self replicating lines. Lets not create an unethical practice just because we have a shortage of parts to experiment on .. the same guidelines and ethical requirements for donating other body parts should still apply, for the reasons they apply to other medical procedures. This has nothing to do with feminism - its about avoiding creating a black market that is a threat to other people.

Staying with ethical practices, will get you donors, who will do it because a loved one has one of the illness that stem cell research might help. These donors if fully informed can give their eggs away, but luring women in with large sums of money, and not giving them the medical information like the traditional fertility industry does to the college women it lures in, is unethical. And when even the money doesn't bring in enough women, it will create a black market, were tracking the eggs back to source is not possible, so verification of the body part as ethically obtained is not possible.

I am not saying don't do it, just don't do it for money, and make sure that every egg is traceable back to the source so audits can be done that the donation was done legally with consent, and that the donor was given all required medical information to make the decision. This is how they do donations on other body parts. Which is why you have to fly to a seedy third would country to buy illegal parts, because in a US hospital they check on the source of the organ to make sure it is legal, and not stolen.

Monday, August 3, 2009 07:46 PM

The averge American is an idoit -

doesn't know what is really in the bible, or what the constitution says - or the definition of a natural born American.

The Definition is anyone born on US soil, OR whose mother is a citizen. Lots of American's live overseas, and their kids are born all over the place, and you know what, if mom is a US citizen so are they. Obama could have been born on Mars - but he would still be a "Natural born Citizen" because your mother's citizenship is what grants your citizenship. So until they prove his mom was not an American born in Kansas - they are wasting our time.

And note, if your mom is not a US citizen, just your dad, and you are overseas, you are not a US citizen.... which is why we abandoned all those kids in Vietnam. US law grants citizenship automatically to ANY child born to a US female citizen.

Morons

Most Active Letters Threads

523

The crazy, irrational beliefs of Muslims

Tom Friedman explains the real problem: stupid Muslims think the U.S. is about war and aggression.
420

The face of rotted Washington

Evan Bayh demands more debt-financed war - fought by others - while boasting that he's a stern "deficit hawk."
186

Bigotry wins in Switzerland

By voting to ban the construction of minarets, Switzerland apes the most extreme intolerance in the Muslim world
130

Facebook, the mean girls and me

At 34 years old, I finally feel like a popular seventh-grader. How sad is that?
103

Polanski moves from jail to ski chalet

The rapist director is granted bail, and one of his most vocal apologists celebrates

View all »

Letters Help

Currently in Salon