ABSTRACT
On one of Beijing’s many university campuses, a small ad was posted on a notice board some time in the spring of 2007:
The advertiser was the father of a 42-year-old woman who had been diagnosed with dysfunctional ovaries. Her doctor had said that the only way to overcome this was ‘if good quality donated eggs could be found.’ When asked, the father told doctors that the reason he preferred advertising for eggs on campus rather than getting them through the hospital was because he could see the donor in person ‘to make sure she is healthy and good looking’ (BIONET 2007, 4). While the commercialised sale of ova and sperm is forbidden by law in China, like in many other countries there is a chronic shortage of donors, leading this family to directly solicit potential donors.1
