Go Forth and Multiply

Last week in my freshman class at The Big University we were discussing ethics. That was my first mistake.

We entered into a conversation about college women being egg donors for childless couples. Some couples will pay up to $50,000 for this service. Give us your eggs, you smart, tall, gorgeous, athletic, blond coed, and then go away so we two homely, short, hair-like-a-Brillo-pad, mathletes can have a big pretty amazon baby. Here's your check. Don't call us.

Some of the girls in the class said they'd jump at the chance for that kind of money for something so "easy." Blah blah. The usual.

I asked the guys what they thought about donating sperm. Keep in mind, I told them, that the women here in the classroom would have limited numbers of children out in the world, but your sperm could populate a small country. Would it bother you to know that you might have thousands of offspring walking around on the planet that you could never meet?

Short span of silence. Then...

"Nah," said Juan.

Why not, I asked.

"Because. Like, our dog ran away a couple years ago and he ain't never came back."


I do not even pretend to understand that.