Frankenlaw

Babies conceived after their parents’ death, toddlers inheriting embryos, women giving birth to IVF twins that aren’t theirs, or related to each other… Significant advances in technology have opened up a whole new world of ethical and legal dilemmas. Fact truly is stranger than fiction in some of these real-life cases.

- LIESL ROBERTSON

Conception through IVF has become so ubiquitous that it’s hard to believe the procedure is still relatively new. The world’s first test-tube baby was born in 1978 (Louise Joy Brown is 41 now), and the first birth from a frozen embryo only took place in 1984 when Zoe Leyland, now 35, was born in Australia. It seemed like science fiction at the time; nowadays it is hardly worth mentioning.

Advances relating to IVF have opened up a world of possibilities, some of which have become increasingly commonplace. Kim and Kanye selected the gender of each of their four kids. (Gender selection is legal in the US, unlike other parts of the world.) Sofia Vergara has been locked in a custody battle for her frozen embryos with her ex-fiancé since 2015. And just two months ago, FAIRLADY ran a story on another development gaining popularity, namely snowflake babies: ‘leftover’ IVF embryos given up for adoption.

But now that we’ve taken conception into our own hands, human error is bound to sneak in, and with every medical advancement, new ethical dilemmas arise. Here are just a few of the stories that have made headlines around the world.

The ol’ switcheroo

It was all fun and games when Jason Bateman hijacked Jen Aniston’s sperm donor sample in 2010’s The Switch. (Not really – it’s a reprehensible thing to do, despite the frothy romcom spin.) But with an estimated one million embryos on ice (that’s just in the US), there are bound to be mix-ups.