In a development that has horrified infertility specialists, a 66 year old entrepreneur is offering the eggs of female models to the highest bidder online. Ron Harris - a former horse breeder, playboy film maker and fashion photographer - has set up a web site (www.ronsangels.com) which launches on 25 November.
The site encourages the user to 'Enhance your genetic future' and pictures a collection of women in poses redolent of Playboy magazine. Starting prices range from $15,000 (£9,000) to $150,000. Bids rise by $1,000 a time. The price does not include doctors or hospital fees which could add tens of thousands of pounds.
The concept has brought fierce criticisms from the infertility world with specialists deploring the commodification of human egg donation. However, Ron Harris justified egg auctions as a logical extension of the Darwinian notion that humans are constantly seeking mates with genetically superior traits in order to produce offspring with evolutionary advantages - especially relevant in our beauty-obsessed culture. Since not all women are the same, he argued in his interview with the New York Times, what they are paid for their genetic material 'should be a price that floats based on perceived value.' This bizarre mix of crude Darwinism, Playboy-style sensibilities and e-commerce is, according to experts, completely legal in the US.
Federal law forbids trafficking in human organs but not in sperm and eggs. A similar agency could not exist in the UK where gamete donors can only be paid a maximum amount of £15 - any clinic using one of 'Rons Angels' would risk losing its license to practise. However, it is routine for egg donation centres in the US to offer prospective parents an extensive profile of the egg donor, including photographs and descriptions of their talents and personalities. Infertility groups find it acceptable that egg donors are compensated - usually between $2,500 and £5,000 - for her time, inconvenience and often extreme discomfort, yet they frown on anything that looks like an attempt to buy desirable genes.
