Human Nature: Science, Technology, and Life.

The Deserted World of Frozen Embryos

I remember the day my first child was born. He lay sleeping, swaddled, in a plastic bin at the hospital. That's when I finally understood what it meant to be a parent. "If we leave this hospital without this baby," I told my wife, "we'll be arrested."

It was a joke, but it was also true. You arrive at the hospital as two people, and you leave as three. You can't just make a baby and walk away. It's yours forever.

Unless, that is, you make a baby through in vitro fertilization. In that case, you can put the embryo away in a freezer and decide what to do about it later. Or never. ...

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