Monday, November 1, 1999

Week of 11/01/1999

Scrambled Hysteria
Model’s Eggs Plus Medical Hypocrisy Equals Media Breakfast
- by David Matthews 2

Ron Harris loves beauty.

That much is apparent.

As a photographer, Harris has photographed hundreds of beautiful people. As a producer and director, he created everything from the visually pleasing 20 Minute Workout series in the 1980’s to the Star Shapes and Naturals series for Playboy TV, which featured nothing but beautiful women. He is also the author of the yet-to-be released book "Naked Power", which explains the power beauty plays in society. In each instance, Harris feels he should share his vision of beauty with others.

And now Ron Harris want to share his vision of beauty in a different way.. He has created a web site that is auctioning off something very personal of some of his models. Something very unique, in fact. Their eggs.

As Harris says himself: "Beauty is its own reward. This is the first society to truly comprehend how important beautiful genes are to our evolution. Just watch television and you will see that we are only interested in looking at beautiful people. From the network anchors, to supermodels that appear in most advertisements, our society is obsessed with youth and beauty. As our society grows older, we inevitably look to youth and beauty. The billion dollar cosmetic industry, including cosmetic surgery is proof of our obsession with beauty."

In other words, beauty is more than just being skin-deep, according to Harris, but something that’s in the genes. And why should a couple risk the genetic gamble when they can have the willing egg of one who is already a model? All you have to do is post the highest bid, which starts at $15,000.00!

Of course, this is outraging many people, including the self-professed Gods of Mount Morality in Washington DC. How DARE Ron Harris auction off the eggs of models like he does his Arabian horses? How DARE Ron Harris let the marketplace dictate the price of the eggs of beautiful women? How DARE the Internet community ALLOW this to happen?

Surprisingly, the loudest of critics are the people who work in the reproductive clinics, who claim that Harris’ auction is somehow unethical. Hmm…. This from clinics that offer on the average $3000 for a human egg? That sounds awfully a lot like a McDonald’s worker complaining about the prices of a trendy California restaurant. And these clinics don’t work for free, right? How much more are the doctors charging for their gracious services? They certainly don’t operate solely out of the "goodness" of their hearts. Methinks these so-called "ethical professionals" protest too much.

Other critics go even further, speculating that this kind of auctioning of human eggs and sperm would bring us that much closer to Hitler’s dream of genetic manipulation to make the superior race.

Now let’s get brutally honest here… That’s OLD news, folks! Genetic manipulation has been going on for centuries the old fashioned way, carried out by the elite in our society! The fact that both Prince Charles and the late Lady Diana of Wales both had romances on the side while they were married is proof that their marriage was more about producing "perfect" heirs than creating a family based on love. This kind of stuff happens even in our mom-and-pop Americana communities. We all have our local examples of the "Ken and Barbie" couple. Why else do you think that the star quarterback ends up with the head cheerleader? They want to create those perfect little Stepford Pod children, just like everyone else!

What Ron Harris is doing with his auction is simply exposing that vanity and putting it up for our own reflection. Let’s face it, the couple who would be willing to spend up to $150,000 for a model’s egg has to be very vain, not to mention very foolish with their money.

Of course, the media doesn’t see it like that. They much rather point towards the money side of the situation, saying that the models are simply in this for the big bucks. But if there are people who are foolish to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for your reproductive material, who wouldn’t want to get the most out of that?

The process isn’t easy either. Once the deal is made, the model has to undergo months of hormone injections before the egg can be retrieved. This is a long and laborious process, and quite possibly the model would not be able to make money modeling during that period of time. Would you be willing to do that with your job and only get paid a relative pittance?

And yet, even after all of this, there is no guarantee that the product of this unusual combination of a model’s egg and the sperm of a foolish rich man would be a beautiful person. There is SO much that is dictated by the randomness of fate and the various genetic combinations that quite possibly the child will grow up in twenty years to be a Plain Jane and not the next Kate Moss. What then? The parents certainly cannot sue the model, or Ron Harris, simply because the promised child isn’t beautiful.

If anything, the whole debacle concerning Ron’s Angels and his egg-auction is more phony public hysteria than a serious legitimate concern. Infertile couples who are foolish enough to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars simply for the egg of a beautiful model should be left to their foolishness, and let the rest of America concern itself with more serious issues that affect our lives.

No comments: