The Egg Hunt

^{"Editing or Eggs" by daithifortytwo is
licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0}

The first advertisement was slid under the door of Maggie’s* Ivy League dorm room. The quarter sheet of thin paper featured a woman’s silhouette, leaping with open arms over an explosion of rainbow-hued long-tailed ovals and flowers. It implored her to “Be Eggceptional. Help a family’s dream come true. Become an egg donor today.”

The freshman threw it away without thinking much of it. Then the egg donation ads went virtual, a constant presence on her social media for three years until one on Facebook made her look twice. It said she could make up to $100,000 as an egg donor — so she clicked on it.

Ads for egg donation have long targeted young women from top-tier schools. But now, as ads aren’t relegated to dorm room distribution or alumni magazine classifieds and instead follow potentially interested donors around online for years, their idyllic depiction of egg donation begs a few questions: Are they helpful, informing potential donors about life-changing amounts of money? In targeting highly-educated and...