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Beyond the issues of affordability and fairness and concerns about aging mothers and disposing of frozen embryos, a single ethical question underlies all assisted reproduction, from fertility drugs to the still untested idea of human cloning: Have we the right to play God by intervening in this most basic of biological functions?
But playing God is an unfair description of assisted reproduction, says Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at New York Hospital/Cornell Medical Center. "All of us in medicine are facilitators, trying, essentially, to put things back to the way they work in nature," he says.
Whatever the concerns raised by their work, the scientists who are pushing the envelope on assisted reproduction reject any suggestion that the work is morally repugnant. And so, clearly, do the tens of thousands of infertile couples who seek their help.
--Reported by Leslie Everton Brice/Atlanta, Dan Cray/Los Angeles, James L. Graff/Chicago and Lawrence Mondi/New York
For information on how to choose a fertility clinic, visit time.com on the Web.