 The Varieties of Reproductive ExperienceIn a companion article in the same issue, the renowned scientist James D. Watson addressed the possibility that advances in the study of genetics and embryology might soon lead to human reproduction by cloning. "A human being born of clonal reproduction most likely will appear on the earth within the next twenty to fifty years," he wrote, "and even sooner, if some nation should actively promote the venture." Given that science seemed to be progressing so quickly in that direction, Watson urged that the practical and ethical implications of such a development should be thought through as soon as possible. This is a matter far too important to be left solely in the hands of the scientific and medical communities. The belief that surrogate mothers and clonal babies are inevitable because science always moves forward ... represents a form of laissez-faire nonsense... In the ensuing years, reproductive technology did continue to make dramatic advances. But as Gina Maranto warned more than twenty years later in "Delayed Childbearing" (June 1995), reproductive science had not in fact progressed as far as some had been led to believe. In the 1970s, she explained, the field had become a mecca for the best and most creative scientists who, in her words, had "assumed the status of latter-day fertility gods." The rapid pace of discovery and the intensity of the media hype surrounding it at the time had "conveyed the impression that the vagaries of reproduction had been brought under technological control." As a result, she explained, women had come to believe that, thanks to the wonders of science, they could now be assured of having children whenever they chose. Sadly, she reported, many of those who had waited until their thirties or forties to attempt to become mothers were now finding that they had waited too long and could not conceive. For many of these women, this discovery was devastating. Fertility clinics do hold out some hope for the desperate, Maranto noted, but in her view that option is far from ideal: This path is generally costly (patients must pay tens of thousands of dollars out of their own pockets), as well as unpleasant (women undergo painful daily injections of fertility drugs, frequent blood tests, general anesthesia, and invasive surgery). Medically mediated conception is also time-consuming and encourages a kind of obsessiveness... Caitlin Flanagan similarly addressed the travails of late-in-life aspiring mothers in her June 2002 book review of Sylvia Ann Hewlett's Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children. Flanagan criticized Hewlett for enthusiastically commending the heroism of older women who have braved all manner of costly and painful procedures to bear children against the odds. Given that many of the women Hewlett profiled became pregnant at (in Flanagan's words) "near-biblical ages," Flanagan dismissed the book as "something of [a] freak show." Moreover, it is far from clear, Flanagan argued, that these women's quest to have children is a worthy one. The most obvious question that such a pursuit prompts—whether it is in a child's best interest to have a mother who will be facing the challenges and travails of old age just as her offspring is entering adolescence—is never mentioned. Why? Because this is a book from the perspective of "high-achieving women," and the main impression we get of the type is that they are going to get exactly what they want, and damn the expense or the human toll. Though the problem of infertility has yet to be made obsolete, other dramatic scientific developments have continued to transform the process of bringing children into the world. In March 2002, Margaret Talbot discussed new technologies that enable couples to choose the gender of their children. One clinic she reported on used a technique called sperm-sorting, in which sperm with the desired male or female genetic material are selected for. Other clinics, she explained, create embryos in vitro and then screen them for gender before either discarding them or implanting them in the uterus. Talbot vehemently objected to such processes, arguing that they are antithetical to the spirit of unconditional love that parenthood is supposed to represent: A world in which people (wealthy people, anyway) can custom-design human beings unhampered by law or social sanction is not a dystopian sci-fi fantasy any longer but a realistic scenario... Sage Stossel is executive editor of The Atlantic Online and draws the cartoon feature "Sage, Ink." Her children's book, We're Off to Harvard Square, was published in 2004.
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From Atlantic UnboundDr. Kinsey's RevolutionArticles from the 1920s through the 1990s comment on sex in America and the influence of Dr. Alfred Kinsey. |
