Ova for sale.

• Author: O'Reilly, Kevin B.
• Position: Letters - Letter to the editor

Kerry Howley is to be congratulated for her beautifully written firsthand examination of the egg donor experience ("Ova for Sale," October), but her criticisms of the IVF industry struck me as a little ungenerous. She would prefer "unblinking honesty" about the exchange of money for human ova and finds it "degrading" to be both paid handsomely and considered altruistic. But her own article explains the precarious U.S. legal regime under which the sale of ova takes place, though she failed to note that politicians in Arizona and California just this year have proposed outlawing compensation to egg donors. Doctors and patients shouldn't be chastised for obfuscating to protect their freedoms.

Howley's actions belie her superficially hard-line position. She...