Americans are being beat by Asians again. Asians do better on international standardized tests, their economies are better; heck, they are even robbing us of that last stronghold of American dominance - obesity. The Chinese have gotten a level of fat in one generation that it took Americans 200 years to accomplish. Typical overachievers.
Of course, America tries to find ways to fight back. Good luck getting into college if you are Asian and not brilliant. Many Asians give the advice that, if you are half Asian but with an American last name, check Caucasian and not Asian on the college application form because white kids need much lower scores to get in. Deny that cultural heritage unless your scores are way ahead of everyone else (or you are going to Caltech - they are racially blind when it comes to admissions so it is okay to be Asian, and thus over 30% of Caltech is). And for Asians who get educated in America, protectionist visa schemes left over from the 1990s make sure you can't get a job here after you graduate.
But take heart, Asian women. It isn't all negatives for being smarter and working harder than others. It turns out that if you want to be an egg donor, your gametes are like gold. The free market does not lie; while most ethnic groups will command maybe $6,000 for a top quality female ova donation, Asian women can command enough to buy a semester at Caltech: $20,000.
Asian women get this much and I get what?? Credit: Shutterstock.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, which makes voluntary guidelines for the fertility industry, says donors should not be paid more for ethnicity, test scores or appearance - and yet Asians are paid far more than others. Laurie Zoloth, who teaches bioethics at Northwestern University, compared egg donations to organ trafficking when approached by Shan Li of the Los Angeles Times on the topic. "A poor black woman or a poor Hispanic woman doesn't suffer less than someone who is Asian or Jewish or a Stanford graduate. The fact that we think of these gametes as having particular worth depending on race and class is really one of the starkest examples of how capitalism has entered the market in human parts."
Human parts? You'd better not let American abortion activists hear you say that. They want abortion on demand in week 40 of a pregnancy (and some ethicists want abortion even after delivery), they sure are not going to be happy that an academic is calling a gamete a 'human' part.
The demand, and thus the higher price, is related to two factors, fertility clinics say. The first is obvious - Asian people who are infertile still want a baby that will look like like them. The second is a cultural aversion to adoption among Asians. So if the female in a couple is infertile, another female egg with the husband's sperm is a good choice.
Until American protectionism regulates the fertility industry too, Asian women should make all the money they can. I mean, they can buy a new car with each donation. Let's get those American autoworkers back on the job.
