Who said high SAT scores don't have real value? For some women they absolutely do.

Conventional wisdom says that being smart doesn't help women get their due.  

Well, that conclusion simply isn't supported by the data in a recent study, at least in term of SAT scores for families looking for an egg donor.  Late last week, a number of news outlets [MSNBC, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, Kaiser Health News] reported that for families seeking a human egg-donor, women who have elevated SAT scores are offered, on average, about $2,400 more per 100 points above the average for where the data were collected from.  

About half of the families seeking an oocyte donor were willing to compensate women an average of approximately $5000; however, as a prospective donor's SAT score rose, the willingness to pay her increased dramatically as well, rising to as much as $50,000! 

Should this really be just another commercial transaction?  

Who's surprised that stories of human tissue and organs being "sold" have alarmed some inside and outside of the medical profession?  Concern about eggs being treated as commodities and that high price-tags would induce some women to ignore the risks associated with the procedures required for harvesting have led the American Society for Reproductive Medicine to discourage compensation based on donors' personal characteristics.  To that end, the society frowns on payments over $10,000; yet data in this research show that over 25% of donors were offered more than this amount.  

Or is it just a different way to go about selecting your mate?

Clearly the amounts reported in this study [and published in the March-April Hastings Center Report] are, for some, disconcerting.  However, the chair of the American Society of Reproductive Medicines Ethics Committee, John A. Robertson, casts doubt on the ntion that paying for human eggs from a woman with particular genetic characteristics, say, for ethnic background or IQ.  "After all, we allow individuals to choose their mates and sperm donors on the basis of such characteristics,’ Robertson wrote. “Why not choose egg donors similarly?"
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