SAMANTHA TROUP | staff writer

I've got some extra blood if you've got some extra cash.

This summer my best friend and I spent a lot of time vacationing, but since neither of us had a working car, we drove rental cars up and down California. Luckily, rental cars are pretty cheap, but the insurance and gas are definitely not. Even with both of us working, we ran out of money but not out of vacationing ideas, so we took moneymaking to the next level and decided to see what we could sell. The first thing we thought of was blood. I mean it’s not like we’d miss a few pints, right?

After calling several blood banks and finding out that they don’t buy blood we started asking our families. Almost immediately my mom told me that selling blood increases the cost of blood for people who need it.

At first this didn’t bother me, because I really wanted to go to San Francisco and still needed money. It wasn’t until later that I realized what selling blood could mean to someone. If my sister hadn’t had frequent blood transfusions while she was going through chemotherapy as a baby, she might not be here today.

An increase in cost wouldn’t have deterred my parents from fighting for her, after hearing that she had stage three neuroblastoma and that the tumor wrapped around her heart was inoperable. But sadly, not everyone is that lucky.

Some people can’t find a donor match or friends to donate for them, so they have to keep searching in hope that someone will donate what they need. I imagine it’s hard holding out hope for something so vital and, ultimately, so precious.

After my epiphany I told my friends that I wouldn’t be going to San Francisco. I told them what I realized and how selling blood instead of donating it hurts the people it is ultimately supposed to help. We decided to look for new things to sell.

Jokingly, someone suggested we could sell some of our eggs. The idea was genius, with no moral qualms about how they are absolutely necessary to someone’s well being, so we started to look into it.

The first perk was the $6,500 that are earned with one egg harvest. The conditions are that you have to be 21-years-old and closely screened for family history that could discourage potential buyers.

The process took longer than we expected, but soon my friend’s ovaries will be a little emptier, and her bank account a lot fuller. Plus, she will be flown out to another state with one friend for a few days on a mini “vacation” when the eggs are harvested.

When I asked if she thought it would be weird to see an unknown child that looks like her she said the person the child may become isn’t determined by DNA. It’s determined by the amount of love and care shown to the child in the way he or she is raised.

It’s funny what the logic is to me about what to sell off my body. To me, blood isn’t okay, because it hurts those who need it and may not be able to afford to pay for it due to other medical bills.

But eggs and sperm? You should sell them for everything they’re worth. After all, if a couple wants a biological baby badly enough and they aren’t willing to adopt one of the millions of children who are orphaned, or consider becoming foster parents, then why shouldn’t they be charged for it?

I don’t have anything against the practice of a couple buying eggs or sperm to have a child, but I do think that adults have a greater responsibility to the children that, for whatever reason, have been abandoned and left to a system who doesn’t have enough resources to take care of all of them.

Oh and just so you know, we still haven’t made it to San Francisco. Maybe I’ll try selling something else next week. Pawn shop, anyone?