Ova for sale.

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 felt guilty after the initial egg harvest was a disappointment, but why? She had fulfilled her portion of the contract. When asked to ratchet up the drug dosage in violation of clinic policy, she obeyed. Why? Apparently she sympathized with the plight of the couple trying to get pregnant. Was that reaction altruistic? Humanitarian? Coldly capitalistic? Howley ought to check herself before lambasting an industry continually threatened by the long arms of the law and the shortsightedness of its critics.

Kevin B. O'Reilly

Chicago, IL