I let you buy kidneys, you let me buy eggs!

The issue of organ trade is now splashing all over the news in Singapore. Three things strike me about it: the timing, the way it is being reasoned and the grounds on which it is being argued.

Let us begin on the timing. Few months ago, Singapore showed its will to become a leading nation in biotechnology and concretely in Stem cell research, more particularly, embryonic stem cell research. We have reasons to believe that because in the short span of few weeks, it called the public to react on two medical procedures that were being proposed: compensating women for donating eggs and creating cybrids. Both proposals had the same purpose: the artificial fabrication of human embryos for the purpose of research.

The only available human eggs or embryos are those left behind by the IVF industry. When women don’t want the spare embryos to be implanted, they have the choice of “donating” them for research. However, this supply is way too short for any meaningful research.