2010年4月12日 星期一

【作業】誰逼我捐卵?

拿在哥大的作業來灌個水。作業的主題是科學議題的「讀者投書」。

寫的是繳不出學費差點跑去捐卵子的心路歷程,以及看這所謂的「捐贈」背後隱藏著資本主義凌駕身體自主權的問題。


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Who forces me to be an egg donor?




The whole thing started at the beginning of the semester.

I didn’t have money to pay the tuition, and people will do anything when they desperately need money. One day I saw a post by a company looking for egg donors. The $8000 compensation sounded like easy money since I only made 10,000 a year back in Taiwan.

I thought, a female lays about 400 eggs in her whole life, and most of them are wasted. If I can get all those eggs fertilized, there will be lots of little Sherry Lins, and probably one or two of them will become another Bill Gates or Hillary Clinton, and I will be very close to ruling the world.

So I followed the poster’s instructions and went on line to fill out a very long form about everything.

My height: 5’2”
My weight: 110 pounds (after I amputate my left leg)
Have twins or other multiple births occurred in your family? No. (The couple wants a child, not a kindergarten)
My hobby: (Ummm…drinking and gossiping) Reading, exercising, and playing piano
Favorite childhood memory: When I prepared a show for my mom for the mother’s day, and she cried, and we hugged. (She threatened to sell me to the circus.)
Why do you want to be an egg donor? Because I am a total altruist (who needs to pay tuition)

That night, I dreamed about my future daughter. She looked racially-mixed, big eyes, very sweet face (didn’t look like me at all). I took her to school and showed her off, and then she disappeared. I rummaged through the whole school but couldn’t find her. Then I woke up with tears in my eyes.

I gave up the idea of donating my eggs. My dream had tested my feelings about egg donation--I would have a baby somewhere in the world, but I could never find her/him.

Couple days later, I got a call from a friend. She donated her eggs successfully and has been introducing other people to the idea because there is a $500 introduction fee. “If you donate your eggs, we can split the $500.” She tried to persuade me and some other friends.

One of her roommate is a beautiful Vietnamese. Because of poor English, she couldn’t find a job in New York, and is now training to be a poker dealer for casinos. My friend persuaded her not to be a dealer because of the complex environment of casinos. She told her, “Why don’t you donate your eggs twice a year, and cover a whole year’s living expenses. And, it is helping people.”

She used the words “donate” and “help” so often that it made me confused about the meanings. If this “donation” is a real act of altruism, why did British women stop donating eggs after the government cut the compensation to £15 ($30)? Why do people stick with the word “donate”? How many egg donors make the decision without hesitation?

And, what forces them to donate eggs for money?

Despite those who want get extra money to buy an LV, most donors are forced to do so because of financial binds. And this situation reminds me of the organ trade in many Asian countries.

In the Philippines, the island Baseco is known as “No Kidney Island”. Three thousand out of 50,000 residents have each sold one of their kidneys to Western patients. And they only got about $2,000 for their non-renewable kidney. Most of these kidney sellers’ economic status actually get worse because of the decline of their health.

Some might argue, “Can you think a better way for them to make money? If you can’t, what is wrong with those desperate people selling their organs?” And, other might argue, “You sell your intelligence and skill to make money, is it so different from selling organs?”

Sure. Under the inevitable logic of capitalism, nothing is unsellable. The only one thing I can do is pray not to be born in a poor family for my next life; if I am, I probably won’t even own my own organs.

I signed an organ donation card years ago, and I am truly willing to donate every organ I have to people who deserve them. I might even donate my eggs someday, but definitely not because I am forced to do so.

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