Should we pay women to donate their eggs for research? No, and here's why.

“Not everything in life is for sale, nor should it be.” 

That’s what California Gov. Jerry Brown said in 2013 when he vetoed a bill allowing women to be paid to donate their eggs for scientific research. 

“In medical procedures of this kind,” he added, “the long-term risks are not adequately known. Putting thousands of dollars on the table only compounds the problem.”

But bad ideas don’t always die in Sacramento; they just hibernate. The proposal to repeal a 2006 ban on any payment beyond reimbursement for time and travel expenses is back this year, with barely a single word changed from the 2013 measure. Passed by the Assembly in April by a 65-3 vote, it will be taken up by the Senate after lawmakers return from vacation next month. 

Its sponsor, the Alabama-based American Society for Reproductive Medicine, evidently hopes that Brown will sign the same measure he already vetoed once. Let’s hope the ASRM is wrong, because this is a bill that could harm women, and its main motivation seems to be profit. 

“The ASRM is aggressively trying to...