Michael Cook | MercatorNet | Friday, 7 April 2006
More than a million babies have been born around the world through in vitro fertilisation. Nearly four per cent of all births in Denmark are IVF babies, more than one per cent in the United States. More than half a million embryos live frozen in American IVF clinics.
Welcome to the baby business.
Twenty-seven years ago, the only way infertile parents could create a family was through adoption. But in 1978 when British researchers Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards discovered the right mix of care and chemicals to nurture human embryos in a Petri dish, a new industry was born — baby manufacture. In the US alone, it is worth at least US$3 billion a year.