9910300153
DETROIT FREE PRESS
991031
Sunday, October 31, 1999
METRO FINAL
1F
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1999, Detroit Free Press
OUR VANITY MAKES EGG SALE A BIG DEAL
Traditionally, the first thing you say about a newborn baby is how much it
resembles the parents.
"Look, she has her father's eyes."
"Look, she has her mother's chin."
But if a certain fashion photographer turned genetic manipulator has his way,
people will soon be saying, "Look, she has Naomi Campbell's lips."
That's because Ron Harris, who has been photographing gorgeous women for
years, has decided to make a buck off people's insane desire for beauty.
His idea is simple: Eggs. Human eggs. From fashion models (or more like
wanna-be fashion models). By clicking on Harris' Web site, you get to check
out these women, pick the one you want and make a bid.
If your offer is the highest -- and some of these models are seeking more than
$100,000 -- you get her eggs, which you are then free to fertilize (perhaps
with sperm you purchased from a cast member of "Baywatch").
And ta-da! You make a beautiful baby! Daddy's little Barbie.
Shopping on the Web
Naturally, an idea this disgusting immediately made national news. Stories
about Harris and his egg-selling beauties got more attention last week than
the Gore-Bradley debate, East Timor, Chechnya or the stock market.
Never mind that some already question whether the whole thing is a hoax, or
that before this, Harris operated soft-porn Web sites, which makes him a
businessman, not a biologist.
Nonetheless, he was everywhere last week, defending his right to be a beauty
broker, defending the asking price for eggs that ranged up to $150,000, acting
as if buying your children's genes is as normal as buying your children's
jeans.
"This is Darwin's natural selection at its very best," Harris says on his Web
site, which opens with the phrase "Come Up to Beauty. Come Up To Ron's
Angels." (Gee. They're pretty and they're angels. Next we'll be told they're
virgins.)
Harris collects an additional 20 percent commission on the eggs -- not to
mention the $24.95 a month you have to pay for his Web site. You really ought
to read this thing. It's hysterical and frightening at the same time.
Other parts of Harris' sales pitch:
"Beauty is its own reward. This is the first society to comprehend how
important beautiful genes are to evolution.... Just watch television and you
will see that we are only interested in looking at beautiful people.... If you
could increase the chance of reproducing beautiful children, thus giving them
an advantage in society, would you?"
I don't know. Let me finish throwing up first.
Another status symbol
Now, whether Harris is a fraud or not, this whole thing does raise some
important issues. Like, what should matter when having a child? And how much
further will our obsession with beauty take us?
Do we really want a world where anything less than beautiful is a sign of
poverty, like driving a broken-down car or wearing torn clothes? Isn't the joy
of the human race its diversity? What are we saying to children when we're
only happy if they look like a little Brad Pitt or a tiny Christie Brinkley?
More importantly, what does it say about prospective parents who might take
the money for a child's college education and spend it instead on trying to
get a cute smile and blond hair?
Never mind that genetically, the whole thing remains a crapshoot. Just because
the eggs come from a pretty woman is no guarantee the child will be the
slightest bit attractive.
Still, the sickest part of this whole thing is that some people think it's a
pretty good idea. "Why not get the best for my child?" they say. These are the
same people who pay $10,000 a year for an elite nursery school or hire Olympic
skating coaches.
People decried Hitler's plan to create a so-called master race. Are these the
same people who now say, "Let's go for a Cindy Crawford type?" What's next?
You pick sperm from a Rhodes scholar? Eggs of an Olympic athlete?
Infertility is difficult enough. It shouldn't turn into a shopping trip. And
did anybody consider that while you might get Kate Moss' looks, you could also
get her personality?
I think I'd rather trust Mother Nature than a guy like Harris, who lives in
Malibu (strike one), has no medical background (strike two) and has bred
Arabian horses (strike three).
Besides, when they wrote that song "(She's Got) Bette Davis Eyes," they didn't
mean, you know, literally.
MITCH ALBOM can be reached at 313-223-4581. Catch "Albom in the Afternoon" 3-6
p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760).
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