From IVF to Immortality: Controversy in the Era of Reproductive Technology

Abstract

Ruth Deech chaired the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) from 1994 to 2002. At times, she must have felt that she was captaining a small and inadequately equipped vessel in stormy seas, buffeted not just by the waves made by rapid and controversial advances in science, but also by the numerous larger and powerful vessels sailing around her. The media, the fertility industry, dissatisfied patients, conflicting pressure groups and even Parliament were very ready to tell the HFEA when it was, in their view, wrong. Criticism should be heeded but for the HFEA, part of the problem has always been that should one critic be heeded, others will redouble their fury. This book written by Baroness Deech jointly with a young philosopher, Anna Smajdor, is thus rightly sub-titled ‘Controversy in the Era of Reproductive Technology’. One of its great strengths is the practical approach to thorny problems evident throughout the work, an approach that mirrors Baroness Deech's management of the HFEA in difficult times.