I read with both interest and sadness, Stephanie Talmadge’s Aug. 20 article on women selling their eggs to raise money for graduate school or to pay off student debt. One can only shudder in horror at a society that now forces bright and productive young women to make such a choice, rather than facilitate their options in higher education.
But even more striking is the casual use by Ms. Talmadge of the term “unborn children” to describe human ova. Regardless of the political polemicism behind the term, it is completely inaccurate from a medical and scientific perspective, and only places an emotional shroud over the complex moral issue of whether or not one should be allowed to sell body parts.
In addition, the use of this term is highly sexist because no one calls sperm “unborn children” despite the fact they make the same genetic contribution to a child as the ovum. What is good for the goose is good for the gander, so I hope that Ms. Talmadge will deplore the selling of unborn children every time a young man sells his sperm or their “death,” as one religion used to put it, through the practice of “self-abuse.”
Editor’s note: The reference to “unborn children” was intended to be tongue-in-cheek.
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