:: reprinted with permission of MSNBC ::

A fashion photographer by the name of Ron Harris is offering the eggs of eight models for sale. The auction of the gametes of these beauties began this week and bids started at $15,000. Is it ethical?

THE SHOCK waves from this pathetic idea have already started to reverberate in conversations around the water cooler, over the Web and on the late night talk shows. The idea, most people say, is disgusting. Even the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, which has never encountered a business transaction in the area of reproduction it did not like, calls the auction “unethical” and “distasteful.”

But those who do not like what Ron and his models are up to have only themselves to blame. The lack of any regulations governing what can be done with sperm, eggs and reproductive organs makes schemes like Ron Harris’ inevitable. Harris’ idea is pathetic for three reasons. First, beauty is not heritable. If it was then beautiful kids would have beautiful parents. And beautiful people would have beautiful siblings since they share a lot of genes. More often then not, they don’t.

That is because appearance is the function of many genes and, when sperm and egg mix, the combination that is produced may or may not closely resemble the persons whose sperm and egg were used. Beauty is a matter of millimeters and it does not take much genetic reshuffling to move a pretty face to an ordinary one.        Second, beauty is sometimes a reflection of what is unusual or different. But, what is unusual may sometimes be a reflection of a genetic weakness or problem. An extremely thin body may be the result of a disposition to anorexia. An unusual set of facial features may represent a bone growth anomaly.

Assumedly, health ought to come before beauty and anyone who would risk the health of a child in the vain pursuit of beauty ought pay a fine — not be paid a bounty.

 Third, by putting their pictures on the Web, these eight models are throwing their anonymity out the window. In 20 or 25 years they can expect a visit from any child created from their eggs. Perhaps they do not care, but I suspect that at least some of them have not realized that the Web is not a very private place to sell your reproductive materials.

So, selling beauty through genetic selection is not a good idea. Still the idea is a natural consequence of other efforts to promote ‘genius’ sperm or allowing infertile couples to advertise for eggs from smart women at elite colleges.

The latter practice is so common that one could probably ditch college rankings of the sort that U.S. News and World Report provides each year and replace them with a price list of the schools at which women are able to charge the most for their eggs. The more elite the perception of the school, the higher the price infertile couples are willing to pay.        By this measure, Princeton, where a woman allegedly sold her eggs for $50,000, should top the list of “Best American Colleges.”

As I said, we have only ourselves to blame for turning baby-making into a business. By failing to ban the sale of sperm, eggs and rent-a-womb schemes, we have allowed baby buying and selling to become a reality.

It is not too late to change this state of affairs — but time is running out. If we do not regulate the open commerce in human reproductive materials, soon other entrepreneurs — with bigger schemes and more marketing power then Ron Harris — will be up on the Internet.

Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia