LUCKY SEVERSON: Amber Tope is not a model, although she's pretty enough to be one. She says she first became interested in donating her eggs when she took a part-time job with an egg donor agency.

AMBER TOPE: I think working at the office at the agency and meeting couples and experiencing their stories first hand -- I thought it was pretty inspiring, and I thought I really want to help somebody like that.

SEVERSON: Three couples have chosen Amber's eggs, which mean there are three children in the world who bear Amber's characteristics, presumably living with parents who are very pleased to have a child.

SHELLY SMITH (The Egg Donor Program, Studio City, CA): Most people want someone who's rather like themselves. That's what we're hoping for. But everyone wants a donor who is attractive and bright, in that order.

SEVERSON: Shelly Smith runs her own egg donor agency, is a pioneer in the business and, at times, has as many as 350 girls who have signed up to donate their eggs.

Ms. SMITH: They are all going to be attractive. They will not get chosen if they are not attractive. It's very competitive. If a young woman has an Ivy League background, and she's beautiful, and she's athletic, she's the person who's more likely to get chosen.

SEVERSON: Finding a donor is as easy as plugging into the Internet. It is one of the reasons the fertility business is booming. Debora Spar wrote a book called THE BABY BUSINESS, and she estimates that, including donors, surrogates, doctors, clinics and lawyers, it adds up to about $6 billion a year.

Professor DEBORA SPAR (Harvard University and Author, THE BABY BUSINESS): What we have in the United States right now is pretty much an extreme market, sort of a Wild West of reproduction where everything's for sale and that may be okay and it may not be okay, and I think we have to ask ourselves some tough questions about the extent to which this does raise moral concerns.

SEVERSON: Professor Spar's moral concerns are shared, in part, by Jennifer Lahl, national director of the Center for Bioethics and Culture. Lahr worries that it's getting too easy to interfere with what she calls "God's goodness."

JENNIFER LAHL (National Director, Center for Bioethics and Culture): Wherever you're going to find beautiful, young women, you know, sun tanned, educated -- we've got Stanford, we've got USC, we've got UCLA, we've got Hollywood, and, you know, there's always an undertone here of eugenics anyway.

Prof. SPAR: Then I would be worried, because then we are moving to a fairly frightening world where people are trying to produce super-children.

SEVERSON: But Shelly Smith says she would not represent a couple trying to create super-children.

Ms. SMITH: I look at the child as one of my clients. It's not born yet, not even conceived, but it's my client. So rightly or wrongly, I have an issue with eugenics. Will they love the child if the child isn't perfect?

SEVERSON: Many countries restrict the donation of human eggs. Some don't allow it at all. But in the U.S. the business is virtually unregulated, and here in California, with the dozens of fertility clinics and so many beautiful donors, the egg business is bustling, and the state is rapidly becoming the reproductive tourism capital of the world.

Dr. Vicken Sahakian operates one of the largest fertility clinics in Los Angeles, with a growing segment of his business coming from overseas. The doctor says he has helped thousands of couples conceive healthy young children.

Dr. VICKEN SAHAKIAN (Pacific Fertility Center, Los Angeles, CA): More and more women now, you know, delay child bearing. So you're seeing women in their late 30s and 40s desiring children. Second, technology that is available today was not 15 years ago. So now you're going to see many couples who otherwise they couldn't do any treatment, basically seek help and achieve pregnancies.

SEVERSON: There are eight million infertile women in the United States and many are willing to do almost anything to give birth to a baby.

Dr. SAHAKIAN: They look at you not only as a medical provider, but kind of as a savior or somebody special who brought to life something that they couldn't do without you. I don't feel that special, but they do feel that way. So it is rewarding -- yeah, definitely.

SEVERSON: The financial rewards for a fertility specialist go without saying. What is causing an outcry among critics are the financial rewards for young egg donors.

Ms. LAHL: It's been incredible. I mean, there was that one college student up at the University of Minnesota that got, I think, $80,000 because she had just the right SAT scores and, you know, the right Scandinavian lineage and, you know, I think she was fluent in a foreign language and played a musical instrument.

Ms. TOPE: Well, I did have a recipient that chose me because I was a musician. They were artists, and they wanted somebody that was creative and loved music.

SEVERSON: Because she has been so successful donating eggs, Amber likely receives more than the typical $7,500 fee but says she doesn't do it only for the money.