Designing Babies? Embryos from 'Ph.D. Sperm' and 'Attractive Eggs' for Sale

Feb. 22, 2007 — -- Our modern fertility industry allows couples to shop for sperm donors like an online dating service. They specify hair and eye color, educational background…even screen for genetic diseases.

Egg donation is a growing option, with ads placed in Ivy League student newspapers, but no service had actually taken the next step of putting human embryos up for sale. Until now.

Jennalee Ryan sees herself as a pioneer. She runs a fledgling company, the Abraham Center of Life, out of her spacious San Antonio home.

"We are the world's first donor-created human embryo bank, in that we're the only service out there that's actually creating embryos as a company for the purpose of infertile families to adopt," she explains.

Ryan is an unconventional matchmaker who buys sperm from labs that require donors to have doctorate degrees. She hires only attractive egg donors in their 20s with college educations. She then sends both the sperm and eggs to a doctor who creates the embryos. Price tag? $5,000 for a pair, which is what Ryan recommends.

But there has been some concern from the medical community that Ryan's company is not just selling embryos, but it is actually selling babies.

"Well, I think when somebody goes to an adoption agency, and they pay $40,000 to adopt a child, are they going to then say, 'I just bought my baby for $40,000?'" Ryan asked.

But there are bioethicists who say that what Ryan does comes very close to designing genetically desirable babies and putting them up for sale.

"In adoption you get kids that are here," said Art Caplan, a bioethicist from the University of Pennsylvania. "And they do need homes. In embryos, you're making something; you're creating something for sale."

And what about Ryan's claim that she's merely putting together egg donors and sperm donors?

"She's basically saying, 'I got Ph.D. donors. I got women who are college graduates. I have people who are gonna get you -- somehow or another, the suggestion [is] -- a better baby,'" Caplan said. "I think if she just said, 'I got embryos, wanna buy 'em?' she wouldn't be able to command a business. It's the 'better baby' angle that's really pulling people toward her operation."