Analysis of college newspaper ads shows how recruitment commodifies racial and intellectual traits
Shelling Out: Eugenic Afterlives in Egg Donation Advertising in Two Elite University Newspapers. (Hagan, 2025)
Hagan, C. (2025). Shelling Out: Eugenic Afterlives in Egg Donation Advertising in Two Elite University Newspapers. Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 98, 285-294. doi: 10.59249/ESFH7808
Geographic Region: United States
Research Question: What can we learn from egg donation advertisements at top universities about parents’ beliefs regarding which traits - especially race and intelligence - can be passed down genetically?
Design: Analysis of egg donation advertisements published in two elite university student newspapers over about two decades. The researchers looked at specific aspects of the advertisements, including age ranges, racial and phenotypic specifications, intelligence markers (such as SAT scores and academic achievements), affective language, health proxies (like BMI), and compensation amounts.
Sample: The author analyzed over 600 advertisements from the University of Pennsylvania’s Daily Pennsylvanian (1991-2002) and MIT’s The Tech (1995-2014). These ads were placed by fertility clinics, egg donation agencies (both those building egg banks and those seeking donors for specific couples), family law offices, and individuals seeking donors directly.
Key Findings
Early ads (1990-1993) were simple, requesting donors aged 21-30 with compensation of around $2,500. By the 2000s, ads became increasingly detailed, with specific requirements for height, SAT scores, ancestry, race, personal habits, and phenotypic characteristics, with compensation ranging from $10,000 to $100,000.
Advertisements revealed persistent eugenic beliefs through language suggesting donors’ traits would deterministically produce children with similar characteristics. By 2001, 67% of advertisements sought “intelligent” donors, increasingly defined by SAT scores and academic achievements. Ads explicitly linked genetic material with intelligence, as exemplified by one advertiser stating his ideal donor’s “special gifts” could be passed on genetically. One ad stated, “we hope that our child will be gifted, as each of us is”.
Regarding racial specifications, 81% of ads in the Daily Pennsylvanian that specified race requested Caucasian donors, though there was an increasing trend of ads seeking Asian donors, particularly in The Tech during 2000-2014. Advertisements conflated race with genetics, treating racial categories as coherent, transmissible genetic units rather than social constructs, with some seeking donors with “fair skin” or “blonde hair and blue eyes” as proxies for whiteness. Many ads seeking Asian donors did not specify ethnic or national backgrounds, collapsing diverse populations across Asia into a single category. Out of over 600 advertisements analyzed, only two specifically sought Black or Hispanic donors, reflecting broader patterns of both who is deemed valuable in reproductive markets and who has access to fertility treatments.
Despite ASRM’s 2000 guidelines requiring risk warnings when financial incentives were advertised, no newspaper ads contained adequate risk disclosures. The closest were vague statements like “the medical procedure is easy” and “short medical procedure.”
Limitations: The analysis concludes in 2014 because egg donation advertising largely shifted from college newspapers to agency websites with searchable databases, limiting the ability to track trends through newspaper ads. The sample is limited to two elite institutions, and advertising patterns may differ significantly at state universities, historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, or universities in different regions. The study analyzes advertisements but does not include interviews or surveys with the people who placed these ads, limiting understanding of their actual motivations, decision-making processes, or how they conceptualized race and intelligence.
Applications: Prospective parents using gamete donation should critically examine their own assumptions about genetic determinism. Children’s development is shaped by complex interactions among genetics, environment, relationships, and numerous other factors. Potential donors should be fully informed about the health risks of egg donation, which are often not adequately disclosed in recruitment advertisements.
Funding Source: Not mentioned
Lead Author: Cheryl Hagan is a scholar in the Department of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where her research examines the intersections of reproductive technologies, eugenics, race, and inequality. No personal connection to donor conception was disclosed.
Regulatory Context
There are no comprehensive federal laws regulating gamete donation or donor conception in the U.S. The process is largely self-regulated by the fertility industry.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does have some oversight, primarily related to the screening and testing of donors for infectious diseases.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) provides ethical guidelines and recommendations for donation practices. However, these are not legally binding.
There are no legal limits on compensation for donors. A 2011 court ruling (Kamakahi v. ASRM) determined that price caps on donor compensation violate antitrust laws.
ASRM recommends a minimum age of 21 for gamete donors, but this is not legally mandated.
The U.S. does not have laws prohibiting anonymous donations.
Some states have enacted their own laws regarding aspects of assisted reproduction and parentage, but these vary widely.
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Thank you for your summary. I would love an investigation of the idea of "eugenics" in selecting donors. I hear it come up regularly. The dictionary definition is "the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable". This reflects a policy often of sterilization and/or forced breeding. Which seems very different from intended parents who often are seeking a donor to reflect their own ethnicity/heritage, which indeed is generally encouraged by the donor-conceived community. Obviously seeking certain traits around intelligence or "giftedness" gets more complex, but again these are people making individual reproductive choices, not someone's reproductive choices being controlled or coerced by someone else for a more "desirable" overall population.