Bearing Life in a Broken World: A Review of 'No Easy Choice'
Is donating sperm and eggs an act of kindness to a stranger or a breach of our common humanity? Should wealthy women be able to hire surrogate mothers to bear their babies? What are the ethical questions surrounding adoption, in vitro fertilization (IVF), and prenatal genetic testing? These topics make the headlines, from Time magazine—which recently profiled a man who has sired at least 70 offspring via sperm donation—to The Atlantic, which recently commented on the problematic ethics of a society in which everything is up for sale, to Ann Patchett's recent novel State of Wonder, which explores the possibility of lifelong fertility.
From time eternal, men and women have been making babies, usually by choice, and usually in the old-fashioned way. But in recent years, making babies has become fraught with promises and possibilities never before imagined, whether the opportunity to conceive children later in life, identify genetic abnormalities in embryos, or hire surrogate mothers ...
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