It reminded me of this passage from the hotly debated Alex Kuczynski piece in the New York Times Mag:

In our experience with the surrogacy industry, no one lingered on the topic of money. We encountered the wink-nod rule: Surrogates would never say they were motivated to carry a child for another couple just for money; they were all motivated by altruism. This gentle hypocrisy allows surrogacy to take place. Without it, both sides would have to acknowledge the deep cultural revulsion against attaching a dollar figure to the creation of a human life.

One could debate whether or not pure altruism exists (I generally lean towards no), and obviously reproductive motivations are multifaceted. But it seems to me that while "doing something good for families" might be a perk of being a surrogate or donating your eggs, the main motivation is money. And hey, according to the Journal, you can get $25,000 for your eggs if you're "100% Jewish with ... High SAT Scores... Attractive, at Healthy Body Weight and Free of Genetic Diseases." If the economy keeps going the way it is, at those prices I may be putting my eggs on the market.

Ova Time: Women Line Up To Donate Eggs — For Money [WSJ]
Her Body, My Baby [NY Times Magazine]

Earlier: Writer, Socialite Explains Her "Mad Desire" For A Baby Through Surrogacy

And that's not all! Of the 50,000 embryos currently being stored in the United States, "Forty-three percent [of the women] did not want the embryos discarded. About 66 percent said they would be likely to donate the embryos for research, but that option was available at only four of the nine clinics in the survey. Twenty percent said they were likely to keep the embryos frozen forever," the Times says.

The cost of keeping embryos frozen is about $200 a year, which isn't much when compared to the cost of IVF treatments, which usually run to tens of thousands of dollars. Someone like Celine Dion, who has candidly spoken about her frozen eggs, obviously doesn't have to concern herself with costs.

Doctors say the major problem is that patients who have their embryos frozen are not given enough options up front. Dr. Anne Lyerly, an OB/GYN at Duke, tells USA Today that the issue of what to do with extra embryos should "absolutely should be raised at the beginning" of fertility treatments, and adds that the storage bill should mention it. And the Times notes that some parents even want unconventional embryo disposals that include "holding a small ceremony during the thawing and disposal of the embryos, or having them placed in the woman’s body at a time in her cycle when she would probably not become pregnant, so that they would die naturally."

All of this is sticky business when it comes to theories of personhood and the choice ramifications that go along with it. According to EurekAlert, This study "reveals previously unexplored concerns that patients have about their embryos, and it comes at a time when several states and even the federal government are attempting to enact legislation that would either assert an embryo is a person, allow abandoned embryos to be adopted by another couple, or allow unused embryos to become 'wards of the state.'" First world problems, people. First world problems.

Parents Torn Over Fate of Frozen Embryos [NY Times]
Céline Dion Candid About Having More Kids [People]
Fertility Patients Unsure What To Do With Leftover Embryos [USA Today]
Largest Study Of Fertility Patients Shows Concerns About Embryo Disposition [EurekAlert]

Earlier: Writer, Socialite Explains Her "Mad Desire" For A Baby Through Surrogacy

Kuczynski talks about the deep pain and secrecy many women face when they are infertile, and "the terrible, wishful math" she tortured herself with each passing month because of her own infertility. Alex wasn't getting any younger and at age 39 enlisted a surrogate to carry her and her husband's baby to term. Kuczynski is self-aware enough to know that paying a ton of money (about $25,000) for a baby-carrier when so many foster children need a good home will be considered by some to be immensely selfish, and this is how she explains her unremitting desire for a biological baby.

What began as wistful longing in my 20s had blistered into a mad desire that seemed to defy logic. The compulsion to create our own bloodline seemed medieval, and I knew we could enjoy our marriage — our lives — without a child. Yet I couldn’t argue myself out of my desire…Die without having created a life, and die two deaths: the death of yourself, and the death of the immense opportunity that is a child. Not being pregnant suddenly seemed like a public statement, one that left me feeling exposed and vulnerable.

The thing to remember is that, for all women, regardless of socioeconomic status, decisions surrounding fertility are fraught with incredibly deep and often ambivalent emotions. In 50 years we're all going to be gestating babies in free floating artificial uteri anyway, so everyone needs to give other ladies a damn break.

Her Body, My Baby [NY Times Magazine — not online yet]

Earlier: Scientists Predict That Babies Of The Future Will Be Born To Centarians With Artificial Wombs

$5,000 for an '80s theme party?!?!? Um, the brothers of Beta Delta Zeta called, they want their party idea back.

"It was honestly one of the most fun parties out there," the lawyer said. "By now all my friends know that Allison works for me." In all fairness, most big shot lawyers are just overgrown frat boys with paunches and graying hair, so maybe Storr is actually ingenious instead of insanely derivative. She's laughing all the way to the bank with this racket. I have a really great idea for a disco inferno winter soiree if any of you CEOs out there are in need of a new "personal decider"...

Need a Life? She'll Arrange One [New York Times]

The first time I saw an International Male catalog was at the all-girls Virginia boarding school I attended in the 1980s. The cool girls — the ones who owned their own horses and got BMWs for their 16th birthdays, with car-size bows on top — got the catalog in their mailboxes, along with subscriptions to GQ. The uncool girls, if we were lucky, got to peer over their shoulders at pictures of male models in thong bikinis. I found the presentation of male genitalia, packaged and posed and seemingly aroused, totally terrifying. Were they really that long and tuber-like? And were men supposed to stare at you in such a brooding, animal way, their eyes glowering at siesta level, their mouths puckered in baby-doll O's?

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Nude Awakening [NY Times]