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Babies of Technology: Assisted Reproduction and the Rights of the Child
Millions of children have been born in the United States with the help of cutting-edge reproductive technologies, much to the delight of their parents. But alarmingly, scarce attention has been paid to the lax regulations that have made the U.S. a major fertility tourism destination. And without clear protections, the unique rights and needs of the children of assisted reproduction are often ignored.
This book is the first to consider the voice of the child in discussions about regulating the fertility industry. The controversies are many. Donor anonymity is preventing millions of children from knowing their genetic origins. Fertility clinics are marketing genetically enhanced babies. Career women are saving their eggs for later in life. And Third World women are renting their wombs to the rich. Meanwhile, the unregulated fertility market charges forward as a multi-billion-dollar industry. This deeply-considered book offers answers to the urgent Who will protect our babies of technology?
This book is the first to consider the voice of the child in discussions about regulating the fertility industry. The controversies are many. Donor anonymity is preventing millions of children from knowing their genetic origins. Fertility clinics are marketing genetically enhanced babies. Career women are saving their eggs for later in life. And Third World women are renting their wombs to the rich. Meanwhile, the unregulated fertility market charges forward as a multi-billion-dollar industry. This deeply-considered book offers answers to the urgent Who will protect our babies of technology?
256 pages, Hardcover
Published April 4, 2017
20 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 14, 2017
I was provided with this book in exchange for my honest review.
I read the first 25% of the Kindle version and also the chapter about surrogacy, titled "Womb." I stopped after that because so much of what I read was completely false information. If your views are strictly anti-assisted reproduction and you would like to read a book that supports those beliefs, you might like this. If you are looking for something more evidence-based and unbiased, keep looking.
The first part of the book speculates wildly about what could possibly happen in the future if assisted reproduction develops without any regulation or applied morality. Fictional books and movies are cited (Brave New World, My Sister's Keeper, Gattaca, etc.) as if they were fact and not fictional stories. I raised an eyebrow at the huge if... then leaps, but I kept reading.
Then I got to the first mentions of surrogacy. The information provided might have been accurate 10+ years ago, but it is very far from the truth now. For example, the book states that 2 embryos are commonly transferred if the eggs are obtained from a younger woman, and 5 if they are created from older eggs. The argument is that this results in higher-order multiples, and that results in babies born prematurely with health problems. The truth is that the current recommendation of most reproduction endocrinologists is usually to transfer 1 embryo, or 2 if the embryos are rated very low quality. The goal is always one healthy baby. This information is easily obtained by a quick Google search.
Over and over throughout the book, the author proposes a harmful effect on the child, admits that there is no research to support this, and then presumes the result. She states that sometimes the embryo is scratched to aid with implantation, that this can create conjoined twins, acknowledges that there are no studies to support this claim, and then presumes that those conjoined twins are usually aborted anyway. That's a lot of assuming.
The chapter on surrogacy easily cited a handful of high-profile surrogacy disasters that happened 10-20 years ago when the process was much different. It raises many worst case scenario, "what if" questions, and then dismisses them by saying, "It can't be known." Actually, these things can be known, and are known by anyone who has even reviewed a 40+ page surrogacy contract. More information that can be easily obtained by a quick online search.
In short, I was astounded at how much of what I read was blatantly incorrect or many years out of date. It made me not trust the other sections about processes that I was less familiar with. I was excited to find the book because it promised thoughts and opinions from the children who were born via assisted reproduction, and instead it delivered the opinions of an author who has a very strong bias against assisted reproduction and what she believes those children should feel. I would not recommend this book.
I read the first 25% of the Kindle version and also the chapter about surrogacy, titled "Womb." I stopped after that because so much of what I read was completely false information. If your views are strictly anti-assisted reproduction and you would like to read a book that supports those beliefs, you might like this. If you are looking for something more evidence-based and unbiased, keep looking.
The first part of the book speculates wildly about what could possibly happen in the future if assisted reproduction develops without any regulation or applied morality. Fictional books and movies are cited (Brave New World, My Sister's Keeper, Gattaca, etc.) as if they were fact and not fictional stories. I raised an eyebrow at the huge if... then leaps, but I kept reading.
Then I got to the first mentions of surrogacy. The information provided might have been accurate 10+ years ago, but it is very far from the truth now. For example, the book states that 2 embryos are commonly transferred if the eggs are obtained from a younger woman, and 5 if they are created from older eggs. The argument is that this results in higher-order multiples, and that results in babies born prematurely with health problems. The truth is that the current recommendation of most reproduction endocrinologists is usually to transfer 1 embryo, or 2 if the embryos are rated very low quality. The goal is always one healthy baby. This information is easily obtained by a quick Google search.
Over and over throughout the book, the author proposes a harmful effect on the child, admits that there is no research to support this, and then presumes the result. She states that sometimes the embryo is scratched to aid with implantation, that this can create conjoined twins, acknowledges that there are no studies to support this claim, and then presumes that those conjoined twins are usually aborted anyway. That's a lot of assuming.
The chapter on surrogacy easily cited a handful of high-profile surrogacy disasters that happened 10-20 years ago when the process was much different. It raises many worst case scenario, "what if" questions, and then dismisses them by saying, "It can't be known." Actually, these things can be known, and are known by anyone who has even reviewed a 40+ page surrogacy contract. More information that can be easily obtained by a quick online search.
In short, I was astounded at how much of what I read was blatantly incorrect or many years out of date. It made me not trust the other sections about processes that I was less familiar with. I was excited to find the book because it promised thoughts and opinions from the children who were born via assisted reproduction, and instead it delivered the opinions of an author who has a very strong bias against assisted reproduction and what she believes those children should feel. I would not recommend this book.
July 20, 2017
DNF ~50%.
I may pick this up to finish later, but right now, I'm just done.
This book reads like a seventeen year-old's school-paper. The author is INCREDIBLY repetitive- they're regurgitating the same information and points that they said in the introduction. And it happens a lot.
For instance, Gattaca is referenced in the introduction, then repeated again in either chapter 1 or 2, with virtually the same wording; there's a line in the intro that says that "one day we all might have our own DNA sequence on a thumb-drive" and then that same sentiment- practically the same sentence- is parroted again a chapter or two later! The writing, over all, is just immature and poor.
Then we have the fact that the eugenics thing was just... Just not handled well. The book blurs the lines between Nazi Germany Eugenic Policy (which was basically kill and abort babies and sterilize anyone with a disability, be it mental or physical, against theirs and their families' wills) and parents choosing to alter DNA or abort babies because they might have a physical mental disorder.
It is soooooo very much not the same thing.
One is about personal choices made by private citizens who are considering their financial and personal and familial circumstances, as well as the future mental, emotional, and physical well-being of their child (that they may not be REALISTICALLY EQUIPPED to care for if they're special needs), and the other is the government busting down your door, kidnapping your family members and saying "these are undesirable elements in society because we say so, and now we're going to kill or sterilize you so you can't reproduce."
And then there was the attitude that parents picking out their children's genetics (hair color, eye color, or weeding out conditions) is like going to a restaurant or a car dealership and making a baby to order. And I just... It feels like the author's forgetting that, while there will always be parents whose priorities are completely out of line, that for the most part parents main concern is they get a healthy, happy kid.
From the way the author talks about it you'd think the parents only cared about the process and not the kid, which is generally not true. The entire POINT of the process is to have a CHILD that you will care for. Yeah, some parents get picky about gender and hair color and eye color but that's pretty trivial when you consider that they're signing up for at least 18 years of commitment to raising another human being.
The author says at the beginning that they're not trying to push an anti-reprogenetics (or whatever the term was) agenda, but frankly? I don't believe it, because there was not a lot of good, recent sources to support their claims, and a lot of it just came off as scare-mongering from someone who's watched too many movies. They brought up some decent points, but the whole thing was so poorly researched and written that I have trouble taking any of it seriously.
I may pick this up to finish later, but right now, I'm just done.
This book reads like a seventeen year-old's school-paper. The author is INCREDIBLY repetitive- they're regurgitating the same information and points that they said in the introduction. And it happens a lot.
For instance, Gattaca is referenced in the introduction, then repeated again in either chapter 1 or 2, with virtually the same wording; there's a line in the intro that says that "one day we all might have our own DNA sequence on a thumb-drive" and then that same sentiment- practically the same sentence- is parroted again a chapter or two later! The writing, over all, is just immature and poor.
Then we have the fact that the eugenics thing was just... Just not handled well. The book blurs the lines between Nazi Germany Eugenic Policy (which was basically kill and abort babies and sterilize anyone with a disability, be it mental or physical, against theirs and their families' wills) and parents choosing to alter DNA or abort babies because they might have a physical mental disorder.
It is soooooo very much not the same thing.
One is about personal choices made by private citizens who are considering their financial and personal and familial circumstances, as well as the future mental, emotional, and physical well-being of their child (that they may not be REALISTICALLY EQUIPPED to care for if they're special needs), and the other is the government busting down your door, kidnapping your family members and saying "these are undesirable elements in society because we say so, and now we're going to kill or sterilize you so you can't reproduce."
And then there was the attitude that parents picking out their children's genetics (hair color, eye color, or weeding out conditions) is like going to a restaurant or a car dealership and making a baby to order. And I just... It feels like the author's forgetting that, while there will always be parents whose priorities are completely out of line, that for the most part parents main concern is they get a healthy, happy kid.
From the way the author talks about it you'd think the parents only cared about the process and not the kid, which is generally not true. The entire POINT of the process is to have a CHILD that you will care for. Yeah, some parents get picky about gender and hair color and eye color but that's pretty trivial when you consider that they're signing up for at least 18 years of commitment to raising another human being.
The author says at the beginning that they're not trying to push an anti-reprogenetics (or whatever the term was) agenda, but frankly? I don't believe it, because there was not a lot of good, recent sources to support their claims, and a lot of it just came off as scare-mongering from someone who's watched too many movies. They brought up some decent points, but the whole thing was so poorly researched and written that I have trouble taking any of it seriously.
September 12, 2025
I'm surprised I read the whole book because the introduction is really bad - super repetitive and excessively hypothetical. However, the rest of the book is better and definitely got me thinking. It came out in 2017 and with the speed with which technology changes that's nearly ancient, but with the questions asked and the concepts presented, it still gave me much to wonder about. It focussed a lot on the right to know ones biological origins, issues with technologies that veer towards eugenics, and the dire need for global regulation. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it given it's outdated and not that well written, but the topic is worth discussing. Got it for free in a little library so can't complain.
March 14, 2019
While it is quite thought provoking I agree with other reviewers in that it was very repetitive and used mostly 10+ year old data.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews