The Case of "Baby M" and the New Reproductive Technologies

Gifts of Life.

By the 1980s parents who wanted children but were unable to conceive had a bewildering variety of new procreative possibilities available to them. There was in-vitro fertilization (IVF), the results of which are popularly known as "test-tube babies." Scientists retrieved an egg (ovum) from the mother and mixed it with the father's sperm in a glass container called a petri dish so that the ovum could be fertilized. Once the zygote was created, a doctor was able to place it in the woman's uterus to develop, as in a normal pregnancy. In July 1978 the world's first "test-tube baby/' Louise Brown, was born in Great Britain. With in-vitro fertilization, excess embryos could even be frozen for later pregnancies. In the GIFT procedure (gamete intrafallopian transfer) zygotes were created when prepared sperm and three to four harvested ova were injected a short distance into the end of the woman's fallopian tube rather than...

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