Al-Qaida #3 Reportedly Killed

This image, from an undated video shows Sheikh Sa'id al-Masri, also known as Mustafa al-Yazid.. (AP/Site Intelligence Group)

A statement posted on an Al-Qaida website says that the group’s top commander in Afghanistan, Mustafa al-Yazid, has been killed with his wife and daughters. A U.S. official says a U.S. missile strike killed him. We speak with Mark Hosenball, investigative reporter for Newsweek magazine.

Navigating The Ethics Of The Egg Donation Business

Browse through any college newspaper and you’ll find ads from companies looking for college women to donate their eggs. It is estimated that here in the U.S. close to 10,000 children were born through paid egg donors since 1996. We’ll speak to Wendie Wilson, a five-time egg donor and founder of Gifted Journeys, a donor agency. We also speak with ethicist Arthur Caplan of University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Bioethics.

Red-Tailed Hawks Set Up Home In Cambridge, Ma.

The Red-tailed Hawks outside of an office building in Cambridge, Ma. (Craig Stanfill)

A family of Red-tailed Hawks have built a nest atop an office building along a busy four lane road outside Boston. Robin Young stopped by Monday as a crowd of bird watchers checked in on the family- parents Buzz, Ruby and their young- Lucky, Lucy and Larry. Larry took his first flight yesterday morning, but later in the afternoon slammed into the glass side of a building, though he’s now reportedly doing alright now.

Medal of Honor Recipient Speak Out Against PTSD

Medal of Honor recipients are coming together to urge veterans to seek help for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We speak to one of them, Retired Army General Pat Brady, who received the Medal of Honor for bravery as a helicopter ambulance pilot in Vietnam in 1968.

Listen: Veterans use yoga to treat PTSD

Eat, Sleep, Surf And A Little Music

A.L.O. at the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco, Ca. (Jay Blakesberg & Damien Miller)

Members of the Indie jam band A.L.O, (a.k.a. The Animal Liberation Orchestra) got to know uber producer/musician Jack Johnson back during their college days at U.C. Santa Barbara and now Johnson has produced the group’s latest CD, “Man of the World.” We talk with A.L.O. guitarist Dan Lebowitz and keyboardist Zack Gill about the band’s laid-back, surfer dude sound.

Learn more about California’s program to support music in public schools

Music From The Show

Kar Kar Madison, “Boubacar Traore”

Ahmad Jamal, “Patterns”

Frank Sinatra, “Come Fly with Me”

Sonny Rollins, “Get Happy”

Charles Mingus, “Pedal Point Blues”

Freddie Hubbard, “Little Sunflower”

A.L.O., “The Country Electro”

A.L.O., “Man Of The World”

A.L.O., “Suspended”

A.L.O., “The Champ”

A.L.O., “I Love Music”

http://wbur LF

The other day, I was driving down Alewife Brook Parkway and a group was gathered. I wondered what the hoopla was about. I was listening to WBUR today, and thanks to them, I know it was the red-tailed hawk viewing! Thanks for solving the mystery :)
Seth Embry

I was listening to the program on WHYY in Philadelphia a few moments ago, during the segment on egg donations. Arthur Caplan, I believe brought up the issue of the intended parents being unhappy when the baby might have a birth defect or otherwise disappoint the parents. I am surprised this issue was not examined more closely. What exactly happens in those situations?
http://www.guineapigzero.com/ Robert P. Helms

Dear Robin Young,

For years I’ve been discussing the ethics of paying healthy people to be subjects in clinical trials for new drugs (such as I have done many times). The dangers involved in most such trials are very small in comparison to egg donation, and payment is determined by factors such as how invasive, numerous, or unpleasant the procedures are. But the example of “where not to go” would be to pay someone a life-changing amount to do something extremely risky.

Egg donors being offered 30K to take the risks mentioned on your show is a glaring exception to the prevailing ethics of compensating volunteers, and I believe that it’s allowed because it serves the interests of wealthy couples, whereas in drug trials, it’s a matter of ethicists being employed to argue for low wages for research subjects.

Robert P. Helms
MT

I wish the point had been made by one of the guests on your show about egg donation that the college a person attends has a lot less to do with intelligence than it does with socioeconomic background. It surprises me that the industry uses this as a measure so I have to wonder if it has more to do, sadly, with marketing to potential parents. I would also imagine that it would limit those who are historically at a greater financial disadvantage, due to socioeconomics, from reaping the financial benefits of egg donation, especially since it seems they are generally compensated less. This, in turn, propogates the unfortunate mistake of equating financial status with intelligence in that it both sends a message to those rejected donors and encourages a faulty line of thinking with potential parents.
Wendi Pedersen

The discussion of those qualities parents seek for egg donors was downright scary to me, and speaks volumes about the sad state of our culture today. Good looks, athletic ability, and a high GPA don’t necessarily a great human being make. What about empathy, patience, a sense of humor, creativity? It sounds as if these parents are more concerned about creating a potential income source than they are about nurturing and loving a child.
http://wbur.org PS

As the mother of a child conceived through egg donation, I was disappointed that this program focused solely on the sensational and I believe fringe issues involved with egg donation. It might be helpful next time to have the parent of such a child explain the pain of going through years of fertility before deciding to conceive a child this way and how miraculous such a conception feels after this period of darkness. It is not a decision that any intended parent makes lightly and based on my experience as well as discussions with other parents, creation of a perfect or designer child is not in any way the goal, rather as Wendie Wilson explained, it is generally to find a donor who seems like they would fit in with your family or a donor who strikes a chord in some way. While it is perhaps unethical to pay exorbitant sums of money to egg donors for certain traits, I believe that is the small minority and any reputable clinic will not work with such a donor.

Unforunately, such one-sided stories only make it more difficult for people like me to openly discuss this option and allow people to think that parents like me are rich, vain people, which is totally innaccurate. In fact, I know of couples who take loans or drain down their retirement accounts in order to pay for this, since there is a large medical cost outside of just the egg donor compensation, and generally, insurance of course does not cover.

Next time, please be fair and tell the stories of the vast majority of parents who love their donor-conceived children possibly even more deeply than parents who had no problem conceiving because we recognize and so appreciate the miracle of life, rather than making us sound like monsters who would “return” an imperfect child. Nothing could be further than the truth.
Sherry Schroeder

The multiple-egg donor guest stated that she does not think of the children that she has helped create through this technology. I have children conceived through egg donation, and was nearly as cavalier as Wendie Wilson sounded about the long-term aspects of egg donation. My husband and I decided with hardly any discussion that should we be successful in having children via donor eggs, we would most certainly donate any remaining embryos. We felt noble and generous.

Now that our twins are nine years old, the thought that they might have FULL SIBLINGS somewhere is very hard for us to think about. We have not yet completed the steps necessary for donating the embryos–slowed down in part because of the sad thoughts of these little missing brothers and/or sisters. We never thought about them beforehand…