The gift of life from Yale

The Kitchen Sink
    By Karen Abravanel

We all know that our Ivy League education will make us highly employable when we go into the labor market. According to three recent ads in the Yale Daily News classified section, half of us also have a similar edge in the market for going into labor. Nestled among pitches for cheap vacation rates and blurbs about apartment rentals, infertile couples seek the legacy of a Yale degree. "Help our dream come true," pleads the latest in a trio of ads. "Ivy League alumna needs egg donor."

Before these three ads appeared and offered a higher rate of compensation than the best of my summer job options, I had not thought about the business of egg donation. The first ad, in which a "Professional couple" solicits "easy egg donation or surrogacy," caught my attention in January, while I was doing the crossword. Repulsed but curious when the ads multiplied, I decided to do some research.

Internet websites such as www.eggdonor.com are evidence of an industry that thrives on the most reprehensible methods of genetic engineering. Located at the above address, for example, the Center for Surrogate Parenting and Egg Donation provides access to a "unique" Internet database of over 300 donor profiles. The database, which also contains color photos, allows prospective egg recipients to "select specific criteria such as eye color, educational background, and ethnic origin." Exhibiting especially poor word choice, the Center tells these prospective recipients that it "look[s] forward to helping you create your family."

BEGUM BENGU/YH

Another YDN ad demonstrates a more temperate version of the Internet database, presenting a "loving infertile couple" in search of a "special egg donor." In addition to being "a compassionate woman," this couple hopes that their donor will have "blond or brown hair and blue eyes."

Perhaps these features describe the prospective mother and father themselves, and their search for a woman with these features illustrates their wish for their child to resemble them. Prevented from natural conception, these couples want their child to be as much their own as possible. This desire probably explains their initial attraction to egg donation, and I sympathize. But whether the husband and wife of the "loving infertile couple" want their child to be more their own, or whether they actually want an "Aryan baby," they have chosen to "select specific criteria."

In addition to physical attributes, the most important of these specific criteria is intellect. "We would be delighted to find a healthy, intelligent college student or graduate student," the "loving infertile couple" writes. Enter Yale.

This appeal to Yalies gives the couple an easy way to gauge a potential donor's intelligence, using enrollment in a particular school as an absolute measure of intellectual ability. The "Ivy League alumna," by describing herself as such, appeals to the sense of elite camaraderie that comes from attending an institution such as Yale. She searches for a donor who has had experiences similar to her own.

Saying these couples "just want to know what they're getting," however, is an understatement. According to the website for the Los Angeles-based Egg Donor Program, potential donors face an application process which rivals that of a top university. After a series of medical tests and genetic background checks, a prospective donor must present "a measure of her intelligence determined by an IQ test, SAT scores and/or GPA and educational background." The program also promises couples "a real sense of the donor's personality through a series of short essays in which she describes herself and her motivations," stating that "donors are also chosen on a basis of their motivations to help."

Advertising in the YDN, then, represents the couples' assumption that Yale students already possess such intellectual qualities. Each ad includes a toll-free phone number, so I expect that all three appear in other newspapers--but probably only at universities whose students have been deemed sufficiently intelligent by the ads' sponsors.

On the flip side, the couples assume that their status as "Ivy League alumni" or "Professionals" will make them more attractive to a potential donor. Just as they view "Yale student" to mean "qualified donor," these couples hope that donors will view "Ivy League" and "Professional" as synonyms for "qualified parents," and will feel more comfortable with egg donation and its responsibilities.

Attempting to appeal to the donor's sense of educational camaraderie as well as her presumed desire for her progeny to have a good home, the "loving infertile couple" actually seems to be the same couple who placed the "Ivy League alumna" ad. Both ads list the same phone number. If one appeal proves fruitless, maybe the other will be successful.

Such appeals augment the offers of monetary compensation--and some of Yale's finer male students lament the substantial nature of these offers. "Why do chicks get paid so much more than we do?" I overheard someone say in the Davenport dining hall. Our Yale education makes us more marketable, but employers and prospective egg recipients beware: we are intellectually diverse.

Recent Herald Columns by this Columnist:
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• Going away and growing apart, 2/20/98
• Politics are a talk show turnoff, 2/6/98
• When wisdom replaces wonder, 1/16/98

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