Everything Conceivable: How the Science of Assisted Reproduction Is Changing Our World

This is a great book for anyone that has been forced to become an "Infertility Warrior" on their road to motherhood or fatherhood. It gives the history of artificial reproduction, the amazing scientific developments that allowed the IVF procedure to blossom into the everyday miracle and the continuing miracles. Lisa Mundy weaves the business, science and personal stories very well to give what could have been a science book color and personality. I have fought through years of infertility, 13 procedures and lost a fiance that couldn't handle it along the way. This was such an interesting book for me to see the history, the behind the scenes business and the future of artificial reproduction. Well done!

The Washington Post Book Review above by Debora L. Spar amply demonstrates what is wrong with "professional" criticism today. How are we to believe Ms. Spar is an objective reader of Ms. Mundy's work when she has written a competitive account? I have not read Ms. Spar's own book - it may be very good - but her rush to discredit "Everything Conceivable" on ethical grounds is unseemly and inaccurate. Ms. Mundy's book dwells at length on the moral minefield that is assisted reproductive technology. No gory, heart-rending, uncomfortable detail is spared. There are entire chapters on the severe dangers of multiple births, the moral, medical and legal pitfalls of surrogacy and egg and sperm donation, and the agony of deciding whether to "delete" fetuses in multiple pregnancies. People will go to absolutely incredible lengths to have children, and this book is both compassionate and questioning in its examination of the unconventional families that result from infertile people turning desperately to an unregulated industry. Please do not let the review above (or Ms. Spar's supporter below) deter you from reading a fascinating, thoughtful and stylish book on an important subject.

"Everything Conceivable" by Liza Mundy is fascinating to say the very least. This book takes the reader on a thorough, unbiased trip through the world of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). As Liza Mundy proves with every turn of the page "reproductive technology is mirroring social change, but it also enables and drives that change, in ways that will affect every single citizen, and probably already have." Thus this book should intrigue everyone, both male and female, fertile and infertile because these issues indeed "affect every single citizen." Liza literally takes the reader with her into reproductive clinics where doctors are performing selective reduction or stirring up humans in petri dishes. She brings the reader into the homes of the loving parents who's child came from those petri dishes and talks with both male and female gamete donors. "So broad is the patient base, and so eager is the field to accommodate them, that assisted reproduction has gone from being an oddball fringe technology to being perhaps the most socially influential reproductive technology of the twenty-first century." This exsquisite compilation is not just of facts and figures but stories full of raw emotion, real people, real life right here and now with consequences so far reaching that soon no one will escape them. Meet same sex couples, their egg donors and surrogates. Meet the children of IVF and hear how they feel about not being biologially related to one of their parents. Hear tales of motherly exchanges via a website dedicated to mothers and children of sperm donor #1476. Ask yourself how you feel about a man donating sperm to his infertile son's wife so that his son will be raising his literal half brother. The situations are endless as are the opportunities, decisions, and repercussions. A scientific masterpiece, that reads like the most captivating novel, this book begs the answers to questions such as when does life begin? What is life? and morally what can and should be done with it? Along with bringing these soul-searching questions to the surface this book is simply an entertaining read. On all levels, this book is a must read!

Gracefully written, meticulously researched, compassionately reported, this is a Sorcerer's Apprentice story of technology that has vastly outstripped anyone's judgment. For once, the problem is not political or corporate corruption -- the failure to consider the most fundamental notions of policy or ethics is due, more than any other cause, to the overwhelming passion of people who want to be parents, as Mundy notes more committed and unselfish than any other people classified as "patients" in our health care system. Filled with heart-wrenching -- and heart-lifting -- stories, scientific and technological developments that seem like something out of a comic book but are going on right now in your neighborhood, unforgettable characters, mind-bogglingly difficult choices, and Mundy's own wisdom, this is one of the finest and most important non-fiction books I have read in years.

While our current technology may be some years away from the industrial cloning techniques of "Brave New World" or the custom-optimized embryos of "Gattaca", we can already store and manipulate the raw materials of embryo creation so that a woman can give birth to a child not genetically hers created from egg and sperm whose donors may no longer be living. Furthermore, with our increasing knowledge of the genetic contribution to disease and human traits and the availability of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to screen embryos before implantation in the uterus, we can not only screen for unwanted genetic traits, but also for desirable ones. Liza Mundy explores these issues and many others in "Everything Conceivable: How Assisted Reproduction Is Changing Men, Women, and the World", a thorough and in-depth look at the science, business, practice, ethics and implications of assisted reproduction and related technologies. As a veteran science reporter, Mundy brings an objectivity and immediacy to her descriptions of the people and technology involved in this growing business. As a mother, Mundy brings a humanity and compassion in her interviews with couples seeking reproductive help and the people, including donors, surrogates and doctors, who are willing to provide that help, for a fee. While people actively seeking assisted reproduction or those in the science and business of it might seem to have the most relevant interest in "Everything Conceivable", everyone in society has a stake in these new reproductive technologies and their expansion of our traditional definitions of kinship; their effects on current society and future generations; and even their challenge to what it means to be human. Liza Mundy writes about all this with keen observation, insight and empathy, leaving the reader with not only a greater understanding of the science and business of assisted reproduction and the people involved, but also its ramifications to the rest of us and all of society.