BILL HANDEL'S SCHEME PROVOKED OUTRAGE from several corners of British society. On the same TV show, London anti-abortion activist Josephine Quintavalle deplored the notion of embryos by mail.

"Anybody who would choose a mother from a mail-order catalog and then wait at home for it to come through the post is absolutely, automatically disqualified for even being considered as a parent," Quintavalle said. "Parenting is not about rights. It's about responsibilities."

Josephine Quintavelle is an outspoken critic of many advanced reproductive technologies, including what she calls "buying embryos" through the mail.

Father Tom Connelly, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, told The Scotsman newspaper: "A child is not a product that you can buy. This is flagrant marketing and a very sad and disturbing development which we hope the government will move to block before it can happen."

Even the world's first test-tube baby weighed in. Louise Brown, whose birth 20 years ago provoked moral outrage because she was conceived in a lab dish using her mother's egg and father's sperm, was asked on TV what she thought if her parents had made her from an imported donor egg. "I would be disgusted," she said.

British infertility doctors are keenly aware of how much suffering the donor shortage can cause. But many still expressed reservations about Handel's plan. In an interview, leading specialist Doctor Peter Braude of St. Thomas' Hospital in London, said he opposes the American approach because lawyers and egg donation agencies pocket a hefty chunk of the money.

"That is not a system I would like to see - selling body parts for profit," Braude said, adding that he doesn't object to paying donors more. "But [not] the middle men in between. There is something I find inherently wrong about this."

Handel dismissed the British qualms. "I think they're insane here," he said, preparing to host a seminar for infertile couples at a London Hilton hotel. "They are very proud of the fact that they don't allow compensation for surrogates or egg donors. Which means there's no surrogates or egg donors in this country. There's no wait for us (at EDI). We have plenty of egg donors. Why? Because, God forbid, we actually compensate these people for doing it."

One evening, Handel and his staff gave a seminar at their hotel for British couples interested in American eggs. Only four couples showed up. After munching on finger sandwiches and shrimp cocktail, the Los Angeles crew explained that theirs is the largest egg donor program in the US. "We have a wide selection of egg donors just waiting for a couple. At the present moment we have 330 donors in the Internet data base," said Lyne Macklin, administrator of the program. Macklin handed out stacks of printed donor profiles labeled by category, such as "Jewish" and "Caucasian."

After the session, a London couple named Sara and Nick said they were "staggered" to learn about the number of egg donors available in the United States. "We owe it to ourselves to try this," Nick said. Both are in their late thirties, and Sara is infertile because of an earlier surgery for ovarian cancer. They have a 4-year-old son from a British egg donor. Now they want another child. After four failed attempts - including one performed in the US - the couple feels desperate.

"It's an impossible situation in the UK," Nick said.

Asked about the prospects of buying an egg from EDI in Los Angeles, Sara said, "I think they are quite good, quite helpful. I think we'll probably look into having an attempt with them."