 The Varieties of Reproductive ExperienceSeveral months later, in "Grade A: The Market for a Yale Woman's Eggs" (December 2002), Yale senior Jessica Cohen described her own experience exploring the possibility of becoming an egg donor for a rich childless couple. The couple had placed a classified ad in the Yale Daily News, asking for "a young woman over five feet five, of Jewish heritage, athletic, with a minimum combined SAT score of 1500, and attractive." Since Cohen fit all the criteria except for the SAT score, and because the couple was offering to pay handsomely ($25,000), she contacted them by e-mail to find out more. Thus began a bizarre e-mail correspondence in which she essentially "auditioned" to contribute her genes to their family. Cohen found the experience unsettling. Michelle and David now had my educational data as well as my photos. They were examining my credentials and trying to imagine their child. If I was accepted, a harvest of my eggs would be fertilized ... A few embryos would be implanted; the remaining, if there were any, would be frozen; and then I would be out of the picture forever. The more Cohen pondered what she was proposing to do, the less comfortable she became with the idea. Once a couple starts choosing a few characteristics, shooting for perfection is too easy—especially if they can afford it. The money might have changed my life for a while, but it would have led to the creation of a child encumbered with too many expectations. In the end, Cohen's offer was rejected. The correspondence concluded with a terse email from the husband, who wrote, "'Showed the pictures to [my wife] this AM. Personally, I think you look great. She said ho-hum.'" Finally, in the September 2005 Atlantic, Lori Gottlieb describes her own experience deciding to have a child by anonymous sperm donor. At age thirty-six, she explains, she came to the conclusion that she didn't want to keep her boyfriend but that she did want to have a child. In short order she ended their relationship and began browsing the online listings at sperm banks. Selecting a donor from the list of profiles, she found, was a bit like online shopping. In many ways, she comments, it was a less trying experience than attempting to select a lifelong mate. By bypassing the uncontrollable world of romance, I was able to choose a man to father my child who might be completely out of my league in the real world... Once she'd made her choice, she conceived after just two rounds in the fertility clinic's "insemination room," and is now several months pregnant. She explains that while this route to motherhood was hardly her lifelong dream, she has discovered that single motherhood by sperm donor is an increasingly common and accepted phenomenon—and it is one that, in her view, has much to recommend it. Nowadays it no longer sounds counterintuitive to hear a single woman say that she, like me, broke up with her boyfriend in order to have a baby... Sage Stossel is executive editor of The Atlantic Online and draws the cartoon feature "Sage, Ink." Her children's book, We're Off to Harvard Square, was published in 2004.
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From Atlantic UnboundDr. Kinsey's RevolutionArticles from the 1920s through the 1990s comment on sex in America and the influence of Dr. Alfred Kinsey. |
