Sex in an age of mechanical reproduction
Djerassi, C.
Science 285(5424): 53-54
1999
ISSN/ISBN: 0036-8075 PMID: 10428703 Document Number: 500986
The initial 50 years of the new millennium may well be regarded as the decades of conception. With continuous advances in assisted reproductive technologies (ART), humanity is witnessing a gradual separation of sex and fertilization, shifting the balance of reproductive power into the hands of women. The first successful ART was the in-vitro fertilization method developed by Steptoe and Edwards in the United Kingdom in 1977; since then, 300,000 babies have been born to women who would otherwise be infertile. Although largely unknown as yet, the development of intracytoplasmic sperm injection by van Steirteghem, Devroey, and colleagues in Belgium in 1992 was an even greater technological feat, involving the fertilization of a human egg by direct injection of a single sperm under the microscope, followed by reinsertion of the egg into the woman's uterus.