Everything Conceivable - How Assisted Reproduction Is Changing Our World

Zusatztext "An irresistible dispatch from the far frontier of parenthood. . . . First-rate at explaining the science . . . and finding the flesh-and-blood people living in this remade world." — The Plain Dealer "Welcome to the wild new world of reproduction. . . . Liza Mundy follows dozens of topsy-turvy tales from the reproductive edge . . . [with] a fresh voice and with a keen eye for detail." — The Washington Post Book World "Fascinating. . . . The book gains considerable depth from Mundy's reportorial urge to dig into all aspects of a story." — The New York Times Book Review Informationen zum Autor Liza Mundy received her A.B. degree from Princeton University and an M.A. at the University of Virginia. She is a feature writer at The Washington Post Magazine and her work was selected by Oliver Sacks for inclusion in The Best American Science Writing 2003 . She has won awards from the Sunday Magazine Editors Association, among others. She lives in Arlington, Virginia, with her husband and two children. Klappentext Award-winning journalist Liza Mundy captures the human narratives, as well as the science, behind the controversial, multibillion-dollar fertility industry, and examines how this huge social experiment is transforming our most basic relationships and even our destiny as a species.Skyrocketing infertility rates and dizzying technological advances are revolutionizing American families and changing the way we think about parenthood, childbirth, and life itself. Using in-depth reporting and riveting anecdotal material from doctors, families, surrogates, sperm and egg donors, infertile men and women, single and gay and lesbian parents, and children conceived through technology, Mundy explores the impact of assisted reproduction on individuals as well as the ethical issues raised and the potentially vast social consequences. The unforgettable personal stories in Everything Conceivable run the gamut from joyous to tragic; all of them raise questions we dare not ignore. Leseprobe Chapter One: The New Reproductive Landscape "Eye Hoop They All Have Babies" Every industrial convention has its own eccentric flavor, and the 2005 gathering of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine was no exception. That year the annual meeting of American fertility doctors was held in conjunction with the annual meeting of Canadian fertility doctors; the massive conference, which took place in Montreal over five days in October, was attended by emissaries from North America as well as from England, France, Europe, Japan, China, Africa, India, Asia, Israel: anywhere that humans live and wish, as humans usually do, to be fruitful and multiply. So numerous were the babymakers that airport immigration was bogged down and the city's downtown was transformed; the hospitality rooms of the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth were booked for events like "Cocktails with the Middle East Fertility Society." Converging on the downtown convention center, reproductive endocrinologists, embryologists, andrologists, urologists, therapists, and psychologists attended courses in packed seminar rooms. But the real action was in the cavernous exhibition hall, where an array of twenty-first century conception technology was on display, rivaling anything unveiled by the military-industrial complex.At the entrance to the hall, unavoidable to all who entered, was a booth maintained by Scandinavian Cryobank, a subsidiary of Cryos, one of the world's largest sperm banks. As one might expect, Scandinavian Cryobank specializes in Scandinavian sperm donors: specifically Danish donors enrolled in graduate programs at "major Scandinavian universities," men so mentally and physically superior that they passed "some of the most exacting genetic testing in the industry." Deliberately recalling another era when northern European men inflicted their genes on women of other nations, sales ...

Product details

• Authors: Liza Mundy
• Publisher: Anchor Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 06.05.2008
• EAN: 9781400095377
• ISBN: 978-1-4000-9537-7
• No. of pages: 412
• Dimensions: 203 mm x 133 mm x 32 mm
• Subject: Guides > Health