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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't get it. If access to donor eggs and "treatment" for infertility should be viewed as such a "right" (as in, comparable to a dying child's right to a life saving kidney), is it also your "right" to select your preferred genetic traits (race, hair color, IQ, medical history, etc.) at an affordable price?

In this country, we also see it as a "right" to have food and shelter. I don't see anyone complaining that their government cheese isn't offered at the same quality as an artisanal cheese at a Michelin restaurant or that their government subsidized affordable housing doesn't have a Viking range.

For people who go the adoption route, they are not allowed to pre-select for race or eye color or medical history. Why are egg donor receivers allowed to do that but not have any price differential for their shopping list of traits?[/quote]

There are so many fallacies with this argument.

1) Adoptive parents absolutely preselect for race and medical issues. In fact, since they get to actually meet the baby, they could turn down the adoption for any reason.
2) The line between what is medically a "right" and what is considered a "luxury" has always been very gray. For instance, cosmetic surgery to make yourself look younger we all agree is a luxury. But plastic surgery to correct a large scar or deformity we think of as a right, in your terminology. Why? Why is viagra covered by insurance (the definition I think you are using here for a "right")? The answer to a lot of these is that we believe that everyone's body should be able to function as normally as possible. Procreation is a very normal process for the human body. Just because someone isn't going to die if we don't do it, doesn't mean it's "a luxury."

[/quote]

Fair enough on your adoption point. Some traits are allowed to be preselected with adoption, but not to the extent that egg donor selection allows. Eye color? I don't think so.

As for your comparison to cosmetic surgery, those elective surgeries come at a price! Plastic surgery to remove a scar is not covered by insurance. Correcting a cleff palate might be, but that is to make a person whole. And, before you argue that fertility treatments also make a person whole, that's not the issue here. The issue is the price differential for the preferred version of "whole" you want to accomplish. [/quote]

Stepping back, selecting the genetic makeup of your future children is exactly what fertile people do every day! What do you think dating is!? Why should recipients of egg/sperm donors not get to choose traits of their future children when everyone else does? The difference here is that it's done in a more direct and sterile way. But it's the same thing. Even still, since recipients don't get to actually meet their donors they have far less to go on than the rest of us. They can look at height, skin and hair color and educational background and some info about personality, but honestly that's not much to work with. The rest of us get to interview our prospective egg/sperm donors through months and years of courtship and marriage. We get a lot more information. Recipients are really not getting much to work with at all.[/quote]

By your argument, you (or your spouse) should have made better choices with your genetic selection (i.e. Dating) and selecting a partner better suited for procreation. Your argument, not mine;). [/quote]

What I am saying is that selecting eggs based on genetic traits is not a luxury. [/quote]

And that is exactly where you and I do not agree. I think this is really the heart of this specific issue (not donor eggs and IVF in general and insurance coverage). I believe this fundamental difference of opinion on this is what will make it such a polarizing debate and a legal and ethical (and economical) nightmare. [/quote]

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