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Good SAT Scores Lead To Higher Egg Donor Prices
alphadogg writes "Analysis from Georgia Institute of Technology of college newspaper egg donor ads showed that higher payments offered to egg donors correlated with higher SAT scores. 'Holding all else equal, an increase of 100 SAT points in the score of a typical incoming student increased the compensation offered to oocyte donors at that college or university by $2,350,' writes researcher Aaron D. Levine in a paper published in the March-April issue of the Hastings Center Report. Concerned about eggs being treated as commodities, and worried that big financial rewards could entice women to ignore the risks of the rigorous procedures required for harvesting, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine discourages compensation based on donors' personal characteristics. The society also discourages any payments over $10,000."
I don't think society has any legitimate interest at stake here that is not covered by allowing the free market to set prices for human eggs. It should be interesting to see what egg buyers will place real $ value on.
I called them and asked about what their going rate was for a high-SAT scorer like me, and they offered me $12,000!
Things went badly when I asked if the eggs had to be organic, and what size they should be, and was styrofoam OK or did they prefer paper cartons. Oh, and when they found out I was a guy.
Sexist bastards.
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This should lead to geeks lessening jocks' reproductive advantages.
Each woman has two ovaries with 300,000 eggs each. At $35,000 per egg, that's $21-billion per woman. You'd think more women would cash in on this.
I think that the worries expressed betray a double standard. How does it make sense to worry about high-SAT women "ignoring the health dangers" of forced ovulation, when you don't worry about low-SAT women ignoring the same dangers and getting a tenth of the money for the ordeal? To be clear: these people don't want women to stop donating eggs. They don't want high-SAT women donating eggs for a lot of money. But the risk in each donation is the same!
In any case, an egg donor will suddenly get a quick and large pile of money. I think the real question should be: How will the money be spent? If the donor gets $50,000 and uses it to help pay for three semesters of her Princeton tuition, I don't see a problem. If another donor, who is not in college, spends $5,000 on shoes and handbags, I don't see a great deal of good having been done.
I know someone who has donated an egg, and she was actually pretty sick for a part of the procedure. Smart women in Princeton, who have other options, will not want to undergo something like this unless you offer them more money. That just seems like a fact. But if the people who want the eggs have the money, and their satisfaction is increased by the knowledge that their donor is academically talented, and the donor herself will use the money to develop her talents further, it's a clear case of "everyone wins."
So why does the American Society for Reproductive Medicine need to shit on this optimal outcome? I think they should be encouraging it!
Back in college our daily newspaper had standing offers in the $15-50k range for eggs of a woman above a certain height, below a certain weight, and above a certain SAT score.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
DO NOT donate sperm, it can bite you in the ass later. There have been court cases where the mother who was artificially inseminated with donated sperm was later able to track down the man who donated the sperm, and successfully sue him for child support.
This is just another example of where the family court system is biased against men. Women automatically get custody of children, or more custody than the man, unless they are on crack or something and this can be proven. Alimony is a total insult; it's the notion that a woman has a legal right to get used to a particular lifestyle that her husband provided, and therefore her former husband has to pay her money after the divorce to make sure she doesn't have to get used to what her income alone can provide. If that was really fair, the woman would have to continue having sex with the man after the divorce, since that was the lifestyle he was used to when married, but fairness is not the goal here. Imagine a couple suing the female egg donor for child support after using her egg to produce a baby. It would be laughed out of court. But women have successfully sued men for child support for donating sperm.
Warning to men - it might look like easy money for something you do anyway (masturbating) but seriously, it's a bad idea.
It seems ironic that women of higher learning who might, as some suggest, fund their education from their ovaries, would need to go to a fertility clinic after their successful education and careers that kept them way from the maternity ward until their 30s or 40s.
Maybe you missed the part about holding everything else equal.
"all else equal, an increase of 100 SAT points in the score of a typical incoming student increased the compensation offered to oocyte donors at that college or university by $2,350"
So I would presume they would compare across the same schools and adjust accordingly.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
SATs over 750 each
Certified Mensa IQ
Concert pianist
Well endowed
High metablosim - hint, hint
Blonde, blue eyes
Starting bid: $youcantaffordit
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
"Intelligence" is a poorly-defined concept and it is very hard to devise a test which gives fair results regardless of the culture of the subject.
In case you haven't noticed, culture is a pretty significant confounding variable for "race" (which is also a poorly-defined concept).
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.