I hate to admit it, but I'm a "culture junkie." I consume a variety of magazines, web sites and news reports to keep up with the trends and know what we as Christians must respond to. Recently, while flipping through Jane magazine, I came across a trend that has both religious conservatives and liberal feminists concerned. Sounds juicy!

"Chicks Selling Their Eggs" was the name of the piece. But it wasn't about capitalist farm animals. The story told of young college women selling their eggs to infertility clinics: quick cash for donors and healthy young eggs for women who desperately want children.

I've learned first hand that in today's era of high tech babies, healthy young eggs are big business, and the story confirmed it. One cycle of producing eggs can bring a college student anywhere from $2,500 to over $3,000. What galled me, an invitro mother, is how the girls in the article masked their need for quick cash, saying it was okay because egg donation is for a "noble" cause.

"It occurred to me that they were going to pay me money for something I wasn't ever going to use and somebody else wanted really badly," said Martha, a donor featured in the article. "It seemed like a great combination," said Amber, another "humanitarian." "I wouldn't do some things for money, but this is a good cause." So what would she do for money? If it's so humanitarian, I thought, why not donate your eggs for free, like bone marrow?

A week later, the story was still nagging at me. I mentioned it at a party when one of my Christian friends — a man who I consider pretty forward thinking — asked, "What's the big deal? It's for a good cause. No one gets hurt. It's almost like adoption — and who's not for adoption when loving couples desire to create a family?" Hmmmm, he had a point. Maybe I should just go home, hug my son and worry about my own aging eggs. But wait — it's NOT that simple. If, as Christians, we can't answer the ethical questions, let alone discern this trend's effect on culture, our faith is irrelevant and once again, we lose an opportunity to reach and influence the lost.

Put Simply, It Hurts

Unlike giving blood, egg donation is quite an ordeal. I know, because I am an infertility patient. I conceived my son through invitro fertilization. Believe me when I say that egg donation is nothing like a trip to the local blood bank to donate plasma!

Several weeks of hormone shots make you feel like you're on an emotional roller coaster. Early morning ultrasounds and blood tests render you a virtual pincushion. Then the eggs are aspirated through a long needle; like a vacuum cleaner sucking them out one by one — yeow! And the procedure is dangerous, with the risk of excessive bleeding, ovarian cancer, or infertility through scarring and hyper-stimulation of the ovaries.

Despite the dangers, I need only look at my son to know every needle prick, hormone injection and egg aspiration was worth it. But I'm married. My husband and I counted the emotional, physical and financial costs on the road to conception. Even then, nothing could have prepared me for the ups and downs of high tech fertilization. Motherhood was worth the risk and the pain. But a car payment? A trip to Hawaii? College tuition?

She Did It All for ... Money

While writing this article, I saw an ad in my local paper for egg donors. I called to ask a few questions. "We pay the standard rate: between $2,500 and $3,000 for each cycle," said Karen Synesiou, co-owner of the Center for Surrogate Parenting and Egg Donation (Beverly Hills, CA). "But unlike most centers, we limit donors to three cycles." Karen was quite frank about the ethics — or lack thereof — of the fertility industry. "It's really scary," she said. "There's a serious lack of integrity in some clinics."

Karen told me about two California women who were egg donors. One donated 17 times to the same clinic, via the same doctor. Even scarier was the 22 year old woman, in the midst of filing for bankruptcy, who decided to start an egg donor center. "How carefully will this woman screen clients or inform them of the risks associated with donation?" Karen asked. Quick money is the worst reason to enter the infertility business. Who will tell girls about the effects on their future reproductive health? The money hungry director?

Though Karen and I likely disagree on some of the moral issues surrounding surrogacy and egg donation, she was very clear that her center will not take college women whose primary motivation for donation is money, something I applaud. They look primarily for 21- 35 year old women who are already mothers and not on government assistance. "And we limit donors to three cycles," Karen said, "because we know they are accountable to the future children they may be creating." (Bingo!)

From Hagar to Horrible

Karen's right. Egg donors can't lose sight of the fact that children conceived with their help are partly them. I thought about that a lot when my doctor asked me to donate eggs to a patient he called my double. Quick cash, I thought. Could help me pay for my in-vitro. Why not?

But then I thought about the story of Hagar. God told Sarah and Abraham they would conceive a son — an heir. But Sarah couldn't get over the fact that she was too old (read, infertile) and took matters into her own hands. She gave her maidservant, Hagar, to Abraham in an Old Testament version of surrogate parenting. Hagar did conceive and bear a son, but in the end, it was obvious that he wasn't the heir God had in mind. 4,000 years and countless wars later, it's easy to see that despite human ingenuity, God's plan for childbearing is still the best.

In her book Without Moral Limits, Debra Evans asserts, "Women are not machines of reproduction, but are each unique, individual persons in body, mind and spirit." She asks, "If the biological integrity of woman continues to be invaded, altered, and separated from her soul, what will happen to the children?" Good question. "Society seems to have declared open season on women's reproductive systems," writes Evans. "We scrape, vacuum, flush, scar, operate, drug, insert, inject, reject and battle the womb, all in order to control what really belongs to God." Ultimately, couples facing infertility must lean and rely heavily on the word of God and prayer to make decisions related to their fertility. It is not an area that can be presumed upon because it "feels right."

Mommy of Many

Whether by natural, invitro, surrogate or other methods, a fertilized egg leads to a new person. If it's your egg, a part of you will live through the child conceived — even if you donate your eggs and never meet the recipients. The girls in Jane can't pretend that babies, half them, aren't out there!

If a couple takes eight to twelve of your eggs (one donating cycle's worth) and most fertilize, there could be several "little you's" out there! Do more than one cycle and we're talking little communities being born! What happens when and if those children want to search for their biological mother? Do you tell your fiance, "Honey, I don't want you to be alarmed — but we might have a family reunion knocking at our door someday." Crazy? Yes. Possible? In today's world of high tech fertility — you bet!

Unfortunately, the sticky issues don't end there. When a woman donates her eggs to another couple, she puts the process of deciding what to do with the embryos in their hands. What if five embryos are implanted and triplets occur, leading the couple to selective abortion because they think they can't handle more than one baby? Will God call us to account for that? I believe he will. An embryo created in the fertility process is human life.

Suddenly donating eggs doesn't sound so benevolent. I believe God can and has used high tech fertility to bless couples that approach conception with the fear of God, prayer and wisdom. I am grateful to God for my son. There are moral lines, however, that Christians shouldn't cross. When we fail to address the moral, ethical and spiritual issues of new technologies, the world marches right over us without a thought toward the future.