In the grand tradition of that ancient, grizzled brood, our venerable Amherst forefathers, the arrival of February has always meant one thing: February birthdays(!). I recognize this tradition here by responding to a relatively recent op-ed piece submitted by Heidi Ray '02 in the Oct. 25, 2000 edition, of The Amherst Student.

In her article, Heidi Ray addresses her own encounter with a common milestone in the career of any Amherst College student, an imminent 21st birthday. For most residents of the College, turning 21 brings the celebrated transition from illegally obtaining alcohol from upperclassmen to illegally providing alcohol to underclassmen. Heidi, however, uses her characteristic playful-romp-meets-personal-reflection editorial style to great effect by broaching a second, perhaps too oft-overlooked aspect of the aging process: the legal right of 21-year-old women to donate their ova to infertile couples. And why shouldn't Heidi be excited about the idea of parcelling out a few unproductive, unoccupied ova? For a sufficiently intelligent, attractive and coincidentally cash-strapped college woman of the "right" ethnicity-a common and fairly understandable criterion in the donor selection process-the match of donor and well-paying recipient is often one made in heaven, if not necessarily approved there.

The ramifications of this ever-increasing recruitment process of college women assumes a new league of depth when one takes into consideration the recent undertakings of Spanish woman Carmela Bousada in becoming the world's oldest-ever new mother. At 67, Bousada sold her home and lied about her age to a Los Angeles fertility clinic in order to receive treatment and edge out the previous world's oldest new mother, an Indian woman, also 67. Luckily for her and her beautiful new twin boys, Christian and Pau, despite the ravaging effects time can induce in the egg cells of Spain's elderly and their ability to resist faulty meiosis and consequent polyploidal births and early miscarriages, fresh Grade-A eggs like those of Heidi's now offer a blooming optimism for elderly record-breaking hopefuls laden with irredeemably rotten eggs. Without Heidi and other young women of our generation, the "Race to 70"-such term denoting the wacky international race to become the world's first 70-year-old woman to give birth-this competitive movement amongst the worldwide elderly might fall short of its goals like so many pygmy hurdlers, revealing itself as little more than a brutal, tragic sham. Are we as a culture of 21-year-olds prepared to sign over our elderly to obscurity in the midst of their record-breaking prime?

Yet another as-of-yet little-explored advantage of human egg donation is the novel area of ethics-friendly stem cell production, which of course is the truth-be-told goal of any brand of fertilization effort. I failed to receive a response to a recent letter to George W. Bush enumerating the myriad moral loopholes in creating research-ready stem cell lines solely through donated, disembodied egg cells, but I feel confident in finding a more literate audience in Congress.

Here's another reason in support of egg "donation" (i.e. selling of unused merchandise): the success of the free-market economy in bestowing the blessing of parenthood on deserving couples while simultaneously relieving a donor's own parents of some of the prodigious burden of financially supporting their own 21-year-old fertility success story. Even a male without a particularly fantastic genetic endowment, such as myself, can appreciate the appeal of downplaying the comparatively thrill-less alcoholic facet of the 21st birthday experience, especially in the case of Surgeon-General-mindful expectant kind-of-mothers.

Ultimately, whether it be for the sake of guilt-free, grassroots eugenics, or rather for the sake of Amherst tradition extending all the way back to Heidi Ray's era, around Oct. 25, 2000, or maybe even for the sake of the simple, symbolic, statement-making allegory of broader personal bodily rights, I believe egg donation stands as a viable alternative to drinking for Amherst's 21-year-olds. Now, I'm not saying "rush down to the clinic at midnight on your 21st birthday for a free consultation and assessment by one of our trained, professional specialists," but for the socially responsible among us, it's certainly easier than adopting the colicky Bousada twins.

Jacob is a chemistry major in the class of 2008. As an amateur fish gynecologist, he is writing a tell-all mini-pamphlet about the backward approach of the caviar industry to fish obstetrics. No, really.