Abstract
This chapter examines how the United States fertility industry relies upon the ideology of eugenic selection and the genetic capacity of gametes to market egg donation services globally. Egg donors are selected based on physical, racial, and personality traits that clinics and agencies perceive will appeal to intended parents. By appealing to intended parents to come to the United States as a means to “select” traits in their future offspring by way of egg donation, American fertility industry practices may serve to undermine officially sanctioned norms and values regarding eugenics and selection in those intended parents’ own countries.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
A Perfect Match. 2008a. Egg Donation Program. Accessed 30 May 2015. http://www.aperfectmatch.com/eggdonationprogram.html
———. 2008b. For Donors. Accessed 17 April 2011. http://www.aperfectmatch.com/fordonors.html
Almeling, R. 2011. Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Anderson, B. 1991. Imagined Communities. Revised ed. London: Verso.
Caucasian, Educated Donor Needed! **$50,000 a Cycle**. n.d. Accessed 30 May 2015. http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lgb/etc/5010052691.html
Cooper, M., and C. Waldby. 2014. Clinical Labor: Tissue Donors and Research Subjects in the Global Bioeconomy. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
Davis, A.Y. 1993. Outcast Mothers and Surrogates: Racism and Reproductive Rights in the Nineties. In American Feminist Thought at Century’s End: A Reader, ed. L.S. Kauffman, 355–366. Cambridge: Wiley-Blackwell.
Donor Concierge. 2013. International Services. Accessed 25 August 2013. http://www.donorconcierge.com/international/international-services/
Duster, T. 2003. Backdoor to Eugenics. New York: Routledge.
Egg Donation Inc. 2015. Donor Profile JODI (#57450). Accessed 30 May 2015. http://www.eggdonor.com/donor-profile/?pid=57450
Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. 2007. Financial Compensation of Oocyte Donors. Fertility and Sterility 88 (2): 305–309.
European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. 2006. Spanish Legislation: Donor Anonymity. Accessed 6 September 2012. http://www.eshre.eu/ESHRE/English/Guidelines-Legal/Legal-documentation/Spain/Donor-anonymity/page.aspx/188
Fertility Center and Applied Genetics of Florida. 2013. International Patients. Accessed 22 August 2013. http://www.geneticsandfertility.com/international-patients/
Fujimura, J.H., R. Rajagopalan, and T. Duster. 2008. Introduction Race, Genetics, and Disease: Questions of Evidence, Matters of Consequence. Social Studies of Science 38 (5): 643–656.
Haller, M.H. 1963. Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Hudson, N., L. Culley, E. Blyth, W. Norton, F. Rapport, and A. Pacey. 2011. Cross-Border Reproductive Care: A Review of the Literature. Reproductive BioMedicine Online 22 (7): 673–685.
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. 2011a. Donor Compensation, Reimbursement and Benefits in Kind. Accessed 17 April 2011. http://www.hfea.gov.uk/6177.html#policy
———. 2011b. The Changing Landscape of Donation. Accessed 23 April 2011. http://www.hfea.gov.uk/6190.html
Inhorn, M.C., and Z. Gürtin. 2011. Cross-Border Reproductive Care: A Future Research Agenda. Reproductive BioMedicine Online 23 (5): 665–676.
Jones, H.W., I. Cooke, R. Kempers, P. Brinsden, and D. Saunders. 2010. IFFS Surveillance 2010. Accessed 24 April 2011. http://www.iffs-reproduction.org/documents/IFFS_Surveillance_2010.pdf
Kevles, D.J. 1995. In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Martin, L.J. 2014. The World’s Not Ready for This: Globalizing Selective Technologies. Science, Technology and Human Values 39 (3): 432–455.
———. 2015. Reproductive Tourism in the United States: Creating Family in the Mother Country. New York: Routledge.
Moore, L.J. 2007. Sperm Counts: Overcome by Man’s Most Precious Fluid. New York: New York University Press.
Nygren, K., D. Adamson, F. Zegers-Hochschild, and J. de Mouzon. 2010. Cross-Border Fertility Care—International Committee Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technologies Global Survey: 2006 Data and Estimates. Fertility and Sterility 94 (1): e4–e10.
PAMF Fertility Physicians of Northern California. 2015. Egg Donors of All Ethnicities Needed! ($7000+ & $200 Upon Approval). Accessed 30 May 2015. http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/etc/5048254746.html
Roberts, D. 2011. Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century. New York: The New Press.
Rothman, B.K. 2001. The Book of Life: A Personal and Ethical Guide to Race, Normality, and the Implications of the Human Genome Project. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Spar, D. 2006. The Baby Business: How Money, Science, and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Twine, F.W. 2011. Outsourcing the Womb: Race, Class and Gestational Surrogacy in a Global Market. New York and London: Routledge.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 2007. Guidance for Industry: Eligibility Determination for Donors of Human Cells, Tissues, and Cellular and Tissue-Based Products. Rockville, MD. http://www.fda.gov/biologicsbloodvaccines/guidancecomplianceregulatoryinformation/guidances/tissue/ucm073964.htm
West Coast Egg Donation. 2015. Egg Donor Database. Accessed 30 May 2015. https://www.westcoasteggdonation.com/db/guest/searchDonor
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Martin, L.J. (2018). They Don’t Just Take a Random Egg: Egg Selection in the United States. In: Wahlberg, A., Gammeltoft, T. (eds) Selective Reproduction in the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58220-7_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58220-7_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-58219-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-58220-7
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)