hmmm...It May Turn out to be Three Parts After All

The first part is here.

bek comments below that her blonde-haired, blue-eyed and well educated husband receives unsolicited requests for his sperm in the mail. It seems the sperm banks are going through alumni lists of high-profile schools and hunting for good DNA.

Another twist, eh? Did anyone else know that they do that? Because I read a great book about the history of the Nobel sperm bank and on sperm banking in general and the author never mentioned it, that I recall.

What I did remember, when bek posted her comment, however, was that years ago (before I turned 33), I looked into egg donation. I was a starving grad student with high rent and little income and whopping student loans, not to mention tuition and fees in the present. I figured I have no particular attachment to my eggs, at the time, I wasn't planning to ever have children--at least not through pregnancy--and it seemed okay to go through the medical process of egg retrieval, and what the heck, I might as well help someone have a baby (far secondary to the money in my mind). I went as far as to fill out a small online questionnaire and order the longer forms to begin the process.

The small questionnaire included educational informational and a photo if possible. When I got the package of detailed application material, it came under a cover letter congratulating me on my superior genes and telling me I was eligible for a higher than usual compensation fee.

Starving as I was, I couldn't stomach the eugenics overtones of being congratulated on my master-race-like qualities, and that was the end of my tentative plan to sell (which is what it really is) my eggs. I filled out the application though, because I wanted to know what they wanted to know. The agency I was looking at included an option to be in an open relationship with the families and children born from my eggs and I was glad to see that option. I never would have donated eggs without that option.

I want to pause here and tell you what I think about the eugenic thinking behind gamete banking (what I'll call "donation" to anonymous banks for monetary compensation, versus real donation, which might happen between known parties for no monetary compensation). First off, I know, I know, I know, that many, if not most people who avail themselves of sperm or eggs through banks are not thinking eugenically. Most are going to look simply for the absence of a terrible disease, or for traits similar to their partners', or for traits complimentary to theirs, or for a kind-hearted personal essay, or--as in the case of one single lesbian mom I know, who conceived before "yes donors" (available to be contacted later) were common--for traits that will help them track the "donor" down with a private detective's help in future years. (My friend chose someone with red hair, who graduated from a certain school in a certain year for this reason. She thought red hair would be rare in one year's class and thus easy to find if her son ever needed a bone marrow transplant or something.)

That said, the banks themselves sure do seem to assume that their clients are thinking eugenically. There is an emphasis on "purity" (one bank I looked at had a special "Scandinavian Program" and claimed it was about purity of the sperm. What kind of purity, I wonder?), looks, level of education, SAT scores, musical virtuosity, etc. And they charge more for the goods coming from people with higher levels of education or special artistic abilities. When you browse banks online you will have eugenic messages shouted at you from every corner of their websites.

And lets face it, they wouldn't act like that if at least some of their clients weren't thinking that way. And according to her interviewers, our antiheroine Ms. Ryan (of part one) certainly admits proudly to thinking that way: some gametes are more valuable than others.

I'm not a biologist like smarty-pants Trey, or a doctor or even someone with the greatest track record in science grades, but here's one thing I do know about eugenics: We just don't know enough about how genetics works to really know how to go about producing "better" people. And: variety=quality when it comes to gene pools. Generally speaking certain genes aren't "better" than others, blends of many genes produce the best people at the level of large populations, because it gives them more possible survival traits. Sickle Cell disease is bad. But Sickle Cell trait will protect you from malaria, which is key if you live in Africa. Nat carries Sickle Cell trait. She'll need some genetic counseling before she reproduces biologically. That is, she'll have to check with her partner (if he's a boy contributing sperm to the project) about whether he carries the trait too. But she will also be able to join the Peace Corps and be better equipped to travel in malaria-stricken countries than her non-Sickle Cell trait-carrying peers.

That's just one example. But my point (and The Genius Factory linked above makes this point quite well too) is that choosing a reproductive partner with certain traits really doesn't mean much beyond visible physical characteristics, and even with those, it's really a crap shoot, especially when it comes to recessive traits like blue eyes. The way I see it, there's no reason to assume that the "natural" processes of the reproductive lines leading to my daughter are any less genetically fit than ones I could hand-pick from a bank. In fact, given that my daughter's genetic lines are real-world tested and "naturally selected" (a la Darwin) they could be more fit.

But I don't really put much stock in what we have figured out about evolution or genetics, because it seems the more we learn, the more complex it all turns out to be.

And because I don't put much stock in it, I don't actually believe that when people want to make eugenic choices; when they want to produce a certain kind of child via gamete selection, that they actually can. So in my musings on the topic of reproductive technology ethics, I don't actually fear the creation of a master race. I don't think we have the first idea how to produce such a thing. Instead, it's the values behind the desire to produce a certain kind of child that concern me.

Last year, my oldest friend and I explored the possibility of my giving her an egg. My eggs are expired now, by egg bank standards, but by personal standards, they might be fine (I was 35 when we talked about this). I had promised her an egg back in our college days, when we learned about egg donation in yet another bioethics class and she told me her concerns about her remaining ovary, having lost one at the tender age of 16 to cysts. (We have since mused about the probable unnecessity of them taking her whole ovary at age sixteen, believe me!) She and I were both completely on board, but her partner wasn’t sure, so we dropped the plan.

I felt entirely, completely different about giving eggs to my friend than I did about selling them to the bank. It isn’t the technology of being able to mix and match our gametes and parent them outside their genetic “family” that bothers me one bit. As with most technology, reproductive technology can be used for good or bad or several shades of grey between them. For me, almost all ethical quandaries come down to relationship.

On abortion, for example:

Are you bonded to your two-week old embryo? Have you named it Isabelle and are you painting her nursery? It’s your “baby.”

Did you fall pregnant unexpectedly at the worst possible time and do you have no desire to gestate this unwelcome interloper? It’s just a clump of cells with human potential taking up space in your body, which you can dispose of as you need to.

I know lots of you disagree, but that’s how my ethics tend to settle, when all is said and done.

The problem is that we live in a society that places all but no value on relationship. We pay a lot of lip service to “community” but it’s hard to find one. I can’t stand the way the term “community gets thrown around to refer to any large group of people who share one trait but nothing else and don’t, by and large, know each other (eg: the “lesbian community;” the “African American community” the “blogging community”). I have a queer community, but I don’t share it with every lesbian in the United States. By my count, there are at least three of four African American communities in our tiny town. Every Black person here doesn’t fall under the same umbrella.

To me, a community is a smallish group of people who have frequent contact with each other and have explicitly or implicitly agreed to support each other in many aspects of life, over a long period of time. It’s a bit like a family. It’s a bit like a large, extended, chosen family. Any ethical quandaries that arise in a real community are going to be decided case-by-case in a way that takes into consideration not just the needs of one or two individuals, but the health of the community overall. Sometimes one or two individuals might sacrifice their desires or even some needs for the sake of the overall community. But in my notion of community, these sacrifices would be taken on willingly, not imposed from the outside.
It’s a tall order, but these community dynamics inform the way I try to make decisions in my own life. The complications of having many people’s welfare considered in major decisions make it difficult to draw up any hard and fast rules or opinions about the rightness or wrongness of any one act in isolation. And when it comes to decisions that don’t necessarily impact my own community, I think in terms of a larger circle that expands eventually to the health of the planet itself (which of course, folds back to the good of my community anyway, as we have yet to colonize space, try as we might).

So Ms. Ryan’s embryo bank doesn’t really fit into my ethical framework. Not because she’s creating lives in a lab, but because she is creating lives outside any particular community framework. Her gamete sources are far-flung and don’t know each other. She emphasizes that they are specifically not to be involved in any decisions concerning the offspring that comes of their “donations.” She prices them based on eugenic notions of quality and value. There are none but business relationships between any of the parties involved, because you cannot assign a dollar value to human relationships and as such, they undercut the strict capitalist framework of the process.

Yes, this is going to require a third post, because Nat is awake, and I haven’t come yet to the essay I want to discuss; the one by Jackie Stevens, in this book

Comments

[Lisa]

Damn, you are so smart! I'm going to cut, paste and save that paragraph about community.

Since I used donor sperm, I'm a little sensitive to this topic. It was quite bazaar to pick a donor. We did the traits like my partner method. But the advertising and information packets made me very uncomfortable. We thought about asking D's brothers to donate. But we knew one would be too weirded out and the other, who would have been fine, we found out had male factor problems from being in Desert Storm. In the end, it seemed more intimate for us not to have brothers or a third party involved as we didn't have any real candidates. But I think this is a really nice way to go, if you can.

I remember being required to go to genetic counseling because of my own genetic disorders. They wanted us to do IVF with (I can't remember what it is called) the procedure where they genetically test your embryo prior to implantation. I said, "I don't care if I pass down my disorder." And I literally shocked everyone in the room when I said that. It's not that I wanted my kids to inherit my disability. I really rather that they didn't because they would have an easier life that way. But if they did, then it would bring a different kind of value to their lives. My life is worth living and theirs would be as well. I'm not going to seek out and destroy them before they are even given a chance because they might be a bit like me. I like me.

I don't think that genetic specialist ever talked to me again after that. I pretty much rocked his world and his main reason (at least professionally) for living.

[Brooklyn Mama]

I love this post, and agree with you on all of it. Subsequently, I don't have anything more to add! But I look forward to Part Three.

[Christina Shaver]

Whoa. Thanks for making me use my brain so late on a Sunday night. Also looking forward to your third installment...

[PhoenixRising]

"Not because she’s creating lives in a lab, but because she is creating lives outside any particular community framework."

Hmm. And how is that different from using purchased gametes to create an embryo, do you think?

I'm pretty sure it's not different. That said, I don't have a problem with allowing people who want to be parents to make their own choices about buying the gametes that make that possible.

I didn't do it because I couldn't stand the idea for myself, but I don't see how to limit it within any framework of community. My choice to refrain from making a baby using AI was an intensely personal choice, and I don't see how to mandate that anyone else make the same choice for (what I believe to be) the right reasons.

So in part 3, will you be tying the series into Carol Gilligan's work on ethics and gender, for the extra credit points? We're anxiously awaiting here...

[Elizabeth]

Wow. Wow, wow, wow. I could never express my thoughts so eloquently but I agree with almost 100% of your post and this is the first time I've seen these opinions written publicly. Looking forward to the next installment.

[luolin]

I know your main point is the community, but I think the illusion of genetic control is an important one as well. Both Ms. Ryan and her critics (or at least some of the journalists writing about her) seem to assume that choosing characteristics in the genetic parents is the same as choosing characteristics in the offspring. This might work for a recessive trait like blue eyes (though I am not sure; I know Emma Jane said it was complicated when she was looking into sperm donors), but intelligence?

My father has a PhD, and so do I, but his other 6 children don't, and his own father was a custodian. And that's not even getting into the idea of screening for intelligence by choosing college-educated donors.

[Donore3]

I've got spare embryos on ice and have been writing about my seach for a lesbian couple to donate them to. Since you adopted, you might be interested in why I'm actually against embryo donation, even though I'm doing it:
http://embryodonation.blogspot.com/2006/12/why-im-against-embryo-donation.html

[BloggerSam]

Hi to all! I really need your help. I want to choose really effective spam filters. Now I use these [url=http://www.tb-mail.com/]spam filters[/url]
but I want to make better my spyware- and spam-protection. There is no spam filters for my smartphone here http://www.tb-mail.com/ Please, help me to choose really effective spam filters for my smartphone and PC. Thanks!