Embryos made to order

[Kadie]

Embryos made to order
Debra J. Saunders

Tuesday, August 8, 2006


JENNALEE RYAN of Texas advertises "The world's First Human Embryo Bank" online. There's no need for would-be parents to settle for already-born babies or leftover embryos from couples with fertility issues. Ryan sent out a letter that explains, "Recipient parents will receive pictures of the donors as infants, and sometimes as adults; full medical background and health reports, and a family history." Her group, The Abraham Center of Life, uses sperm donors only with college degrees -- although "most of them have doctorate degrees" -- while most egg donors have some college.

O Brave New World that has such petri dishes in it. Prospective parents can pick the sperm and the eggs to produce their designer babies. Ryan even says she can find a surrogate mother to carry the fetus to term.

Ryan would not give me the names of any clinic or any doctor with whom she works -- so I could not verify that she can deliver on her claims. Buyer beware. But her announcement has bioethicists in a lather. In response to a British newspaper story on Ryan's work, the Web blog for the American Journal of Bioethics wrote, "Welcome back to the Wild, Wild West of Assisted Reproduction."

Art Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, noted that even if Ryan is operating out of her own freezer, even if she is -- excuse the pun -- a "mom-and-pop entrepreneur, there will be bigger fish swimming in pretty soon." Why? "The demand is there. The behavior of people selling sperm and eggs is wild enough; there's no reason to think this isn't the natural next step in making babies: embryos to order."

more...
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/08/EDGOBIQ0G01.DTL

[Caoimhe]

1. People are willing to pay..

I don't have a problem with it. At least the kids will be wanted. It's sad that people can't adopt kids that already need homes, though. But everyone expects infertile people to do that. If you can pop out your own kids, those homeless, adoptable kids aren't your responsibility at all.