2015-08-21
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Since the first test-tube baby was born in Britain in 1978, there have been thousands of such births and the number is on the increase. This method of artificial insemination is no longer as controversial as it was some years ago because both egg and sperm are taken from the parents.
The donor eggs are fertilized in the laboratory by sperm from the husband of the mother-to-be. Then the eggs are deep-frozen until the optimum moment in the recipient mother's natural cycle. Finally the egg which had been fertilized in vitro, is transplanted into the uterus.
In 1985 the first birth of baby born to a surrogate mother for money took place in Britain. There was a somewhat hostile reaction on the part of the public on moral and legal grounds: you "buy" a baby that has yet to be conceived and you pay a woman to have a fertilized egg implanted and to have a baby that she will later have to give away.
It's now even possible to defrost human embryos and place them in surrogate mothers. As many childless couples long o have a baby, highly fertile women "rich in eggs" donate ova to infertile women deficient in eggs: women willing to be egg donors give their surplus eggs to the hospital.
Exercise 1. Express your attitude as to the problems arisen in the text.
XII. MORALITY
