President Donald Trump signed an executive order expanding access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) so that “American families can have more babies.” However, it is worth noting that IVF not only allows more people to have more children; it further enables parents to choose what type of child they want. I wanted to resurface earlier reporting I did for the New Atlantis about the IVF marketplace, wherein women with prestigious degrees are offered massive sums to sell their eggs. Here is an excerpt from my article “Golden Eggs,” which was published in 2024: 

Fertility clinics and intended parents have also long been recruiting women from prestigious universities through direct advertising. A 1999 ad in the Harvard student paper offered $50,000 to “intelligent, athletic” women with SAT scores of 1400 or above. At Yale in 2008, an ad offered $100,000 to a “very attractive” Caucasian. Sometimes students receive targeted emails: at M.I.T. in 2021, female students with last names like Wu, Huang, or Chen received an email from an individual offering $50,000 for a Chinese egg donor who is “top in her class” with “several awards in high school and university.”

Read the full piece online at the New Atlantis.