Arguments against egg donation fall short
I find Monica Bathija’s claims and arguments in the
Viewpoint submission “Infertile couples take advantage of
students when egg shopping” (Oct. 28) a little baffling. For
starters, she claims that “if a couple can’t have
children for whatever God-given reason, it just wasn’t meant
to be ““ plain and simple.”
While I applaud such an astute and carefully thought out line of
reasoning, I suspect there are a few of us who don’t
subscribe to the idea that higher powers have anything to do with
our reproductive capacities. So if Bathija’s husband
can’t “get it up” while they’re trying to
make babies, will he resort to adoption instead of Viagra?
I didn’t think so. Then Bathija falls into a common trap:
she says that infertile couples should consider adoption and yet
she fails to urge other couples to do the same thing. The logical
conclusion we can draw from this is that somehow those couples who
are infertile are more responsible than the rest of us for taking
care of the world’s parentless children and these couples are
morally reprehensible for not accepting the special burdens that
(apparently) God has placed upon them. Furthermore, she seems to
hold a dim view of what she calls “genetic engineering of
perfect children.” Is shopping around (in this case
literally) for a mate really all that unsavory? Is she willing to
let just anyone father her children? If the answer is
“no”, then her uneasiness is baseless. Perhaps
she’s intimidated by tall, smart blondes. Aren’t we
all?
Lastly, if these super-donors are really as bright as
they’re supposed to be, I don’t think we need to
concern ourselves with their emotional well-being. I’m sure
they can look out for themselves. Now if only I could get someone
to pay thousands of dollars for my genetic material…
J. Alasdair Robertson Graduate student,
physics
Useless council doesn’t deserve more
funds
With regard to the USAC referendum, not only should the fee hike
be voted down, but USAC itself should be minimized or done
away with. Instead of working toward improving the undergraduate
experience, USAC is too busy throwing around buzzwords like
“multiculturalism” and “diversity.” The
greatest service USAC could do is to stop watering down
culture and trying to force-feed it onto students who don’t
care and won’t care.
The best example of this is USAC’s support for a GE
diversity requirement. Instead of trying to minimize the number of
wasteful GE’s that students take, USAC is trying to stick
bored students with no passion for the subject into another
overcrowded lecture hall. This does a greater disservice to the
students interested in the subject because resources are being
wasted on students who don’t want to be there. I
don’t know of a single person who cares about race, gender or
orientation when making friends: USAC is just beating a dead horse.
If it really wants to improve the representation of minorities at
UCLA, it should donate its budget to an inner city high school,
otherwise, USAC should quit trying to lower the
standards. When USAC starts making a difference in
students’ lives I’ll start supporting
them. Until then, I hope they waste as little of my money
as possible.
Hector Leano Second-year, undeclared