Chapter 4: Reproductive Control
Case Presentation: Brave New Families is based on Soraya Nadia McDonald, “Elton John Is
Boycotting Dolce and Gabbana for Calling Children Conceived with IVF ‘Synthetic,’ ” The Washington Post,
March 16, 2015; Bill Chappell, “Elton John Leads Boycott Against Dolce & Gabbana Over ‘Synthetic Children’
Remarks,” NPR, March 16, 2015; Theo Schall, “Dolce, Gabbana, and ‘Synthetic Children,’ ” Berman Institute
Bioethics Bulletin, March 19, 2015; Natalie Angier, “The Changing American Family,” The New York Times,
November 25, 2013; Emily Badger, “The Unbelievable Rise of Single Motherhood in America over the Last
50 Years,” The Washington Post, December 18, 2014; Jason DeParle and Sabrina Tavernise, “For Women
Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage,” The New York Times, February 17, 2012; Claire Cain Miller,
“The Divorce Surge Is Over, but the Myth Lives On,” The New York Times, December 2, 2014; Heather D.
Boonstra, “What Is Behind the Declines in Teen Pregnancy Rates?” Guttmacher Policy Review 17, no. 3
(2014); Neil Shah, “For More American Moms, Kids Are a Late-30s Thing,” The Wall Street Journal, May 9,
2014; Kristy M. Krivickas and Daphne Lofquist, “Demographics of Same-Sex Couple Households with
Case Presentation: Louise Brown is based on articles on Brown in Newsweek, August 7, 1978;
Time, August 7, 1978; and U.S. News and World Report, August 7, 1978. Further background information
from “Where Are They Now,” Time, August 15, 1996; and Simon Belgard, “Special Part for Test-Tube
Louise’s 25th,” Sunday Express, July 27, 2003.
Parents Via Egg Donation Blog, November 15, 2009; Koa Beck, “Why I’m an Egg Donor,” Mommyish, June
5, 2012; Gifted Journeys website; Society for Ethics for Egg Donation and Surrogacy (SEEDS) website;
“The DSR Celebrates Egg Facility Support!” Donor Sibling Registry, September 11, 2013; National Center
for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, “Assisted Reproductive Technology: National
Summary Report 2012,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November 2014; Jacqueline Mroz,
“One Sperm Donor, 150 Sons and Daughters,” The New York Times, September 5, 2011; Mandy Van
Deven, “Secrets of the Sperm Bank,” Salon, September 25, 2011; Catherine Elton, “As Egg Donations
Mount, So Do Health Concerns,” Time, March 31, 2009; Helen Pearson, “Health Effects of Egg Donation
May Take Decades to Emerge,” Nature 442 (2006): 607–608, doi:10.1038/442607a; Jason Keehn, Eve
Holwell et al., “Recruiting Egg Donors Online: An Analysis of IVF Clinic and Agency Websites’ Adherence
to ASRM Guidelines,” Fertil. Steril. 98, no. 4 (2012): 995–1000; Rachael Rettner, “Egg Donors Often
Recruited Unethically, Study Finds,” LiveScience, August 14, 2012; Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, “Are Sperm
For additional background information on ova donation, see: Gina Kolata, “Young Women Offer to
Sell Their Eggs to Infertile Couples,” The New York Times, November 10, 1991; David Tuller, “Payment
Offers to Egg Donors Prompt Scrutiny” New York Times, May 11, 2010; Roni Caryn Rabin, “As Demand for
Donor Eggs Soars, High Prices Stir Ethical Concerns,” The New York Times, May 15, 2005; and Peggy
Orenstein, “Your Gamete, Myself,” The New York Times Magazine, July 15, 2007.
Social Context: Advances in Reproductive Cloning is indebted to: Michael Specter with Gina
Kolata, “After Decades and Many Missteps, Cloning Success,” The New York Times, March 3, 1997; Gina
Kolata, “Panel Recommends a Ban on Human Cloning Efforts,” The New York Times, June 8, 1997;
“Clinton Seeks to Ban Human Cloning,” Associated Press, June 9, 1997; Sharon Begley, “Little Lamb Who
Made Thee,” Newsweek, March 10, 1997; Wray Herbert et al., “The World After Cloning,” U.S. News &
World Report, March 10, 1997; Madeline Nash, “The Age of Cloning,” Time, March 10, 1997; and Gina
Case Presentation: Savoir Sibling is indebted to Lance Morrow, “When One Body Can Save
Another,” Time, June 7, 1991; Associated Press, “Mom, 43, Having Baby to Save Daughter’s Life,”
February 17, 1990; Irene Chang, “Bone Marrow Baby Is Born to the Ayalas,” Los Angeles Times, April 6,
1990); and “Made in Heaven,” American Health (October 1994).
Case Presentation: Baby M and Mary Beth Whitehead is drawn from daily New York Times
articles from January 4, 5, 6, 10, 26, and 27, 1987; February 2, 3, 9, 10, 11, 17, 1987; March 5, 9, 10, and
31, 1987; and April 2, 1987. Background information on surrogacy can be found in: Lisa Belkin, “Childless
Couples Hang on to Last Hope, Despite Laws,” The New York Times, July 28, 1992; Associated Press,
“Surrogate Mother’s Child in English Court Custody,” January 9, 1985; Stephanie Saul, “Building a Baby,
with Few Ground Rules,” The New York Times, December 13, 2009 and “Judge Calls Surrogate Legal
Case Presentation: The Calvert Case: A Gestational Surrogate Changes Her Mind is based
on Carol Lawson, “Couple’s Own Embryos Used in Birth Surrogacy,” The New York Times, August 12,
1990; Seth Mydans, “Surrogate Loses Custody Bid in Case Defining Motherhood,” The New York Times,
October 22, 1990; and Time, August 22, 1990; as well as the American Society for Reproductive Medicine,
“Recommendations for Practices Utilizing Gestational Carriers: A Committee Opinion,” Fertil. Steril. 103,
no. 1 (2015): e1–e8.
The information in the Chapter 4: Briefing Session was drawn from “ART Fact Sheet,” European
Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, July 2014; “The World’s Number of IVF and ICSI Babies
Has Now Reached a Calculated Total of 5 Million,” European Society of Human Reproduction and
Embryology, July 2, 2012; Emma Innes, “Five Million Babies Have Now Been Born by IVF—and Half since
2007, New Figures Confirm,” Daily Mail, October 16, 2013; “Key Statistics from the National Survey of
Family Growth: Infertility Services,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, April 20, 2015; A. A.
Henningsen, M. Gissler et al., “Trends in Perinatal Health after Assisted Reproduction: A Nordic Study from
for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, “Assisted Reproductive Technology: National
Summary Report 2012,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November 2014; Jennifer Gerson
Uffalussy, “The Cost of IVF: 4 Things I Learned While Battling Infertility,” Forbes, February 6, 2014; “State
Laws Related to Insurance Coverage for Infertility Treatment,” National Conference of State Legislatures,
updated June 2014; Michèle Hansen et al., “The Risk of Major Birth Defects after Intracytoplasmic Sperm
Injection and in Vitro Fertilization,” New England Journal of Medicine 346 (2002):725–730; Jin Liang Zhu,
Olga Basso, Carsten Obel, Camilla Bille, and Jørn Olsen, “Infertility, Infertility Treatment, and Congenital
Malformations: Danish National Birth Cohort,” BMJ 333 (2006): 679; Michael J. Davies et al., “Reproductive
Technologies and the Risk of Birth Defects,” New England Journal of Medicine 366 (2012):1803–1813
[DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1008095]; “Multiple Pregnancy and Birth: Twins, Triplets, and High–order Multiples,”
Gestational Carrier: A Committee Opinion,” Fertility and Sterility 99, no. 7 (2013): 1838–1841; “U.S.
Surrogacy Law by State,” The Surrogacy Experience; Kevin Rawlinson, “Interpol Investigates ‘Baby
Factory’ as Man Fathers 16 Surrogate Children,” The Guardian, August 23, 2014; Byron Kaye and Khettiya
Jittapong, “In Thailand, Baby Gender Selection Loophole Draws China, HK Women to IVF Clinics,”
Reuters, July 15, 2014; Jasmeet Sidhu, “How to Buy a Daughter,” Slate, September 14, 2012; and
Jacqueline Mroz, “One Sperm Donor, 150 Sons and Daughters,” The New York Times, September 5, 2011.
The most recent information on the status of ART is available at: http://www.cdc.gov/art/ . Statistics about
the success of assisted reproduction come from http://www.cdc.gov/art/ARTReports.htm.
July 15, 2003 and “For Couples, Stress Without the Promise of Success,” May 11, 2004. For report on
personal ART experiences, see S. G. Stolberg, “For the Infertile, A High-Tech Treadmill,” The New York
Times, December 14, 1997. For more detailed information on AR techniques and fertility clinics, see
Lawrence J. Kaplan and Rosemarie Tong, Controlling Our Reproductive Destiny (Cambridge: MIT Press,
1996; Gina Kolata, “Reproductive Revolution Is Jostling Old Views,” The New York Times, January 11,
1994; and Glenn Kramon, “Infertility Chain: The Good and Bad in Medicine” The New York Times, June 19,
1992.