INCONCEIVABLE STORIES

One of the casualties of this season’s American TV is Inconceivable, an NBC series about life in a fertility clinic. It ran only long enough for the critics to give it a big raspberry. This was a pity, because the dramas initiated in IVF clinics have enough permutations to keep a soap opera in business for years. Perhaps viewers had already seen enough in real life. Here are a few developments which surfaced recently:

An 8 pound, 7 ounce baby boy was born late in October to three English sisters. Mrs Alex Patrick became infertile after chemotherapy for cervical cancer, so her 32-year-old twin sister offered eggs and her 35-year-old sister became the surrogate mother. Alex’s husband provided the sperm. It is thought to be the first time in Britain for three sisters to be involved in a surrogate birth.

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Michael Cook

Michael Cook edits BioEdge, a bioethics newsletter, and MercatorNet, an on-line magazine whose focus is human dignity. He writes from Sydney, Australia.

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