Customer Reviews

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

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"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.

For those who don't know anything about the field of assisted reproductive technologies, this serves as a great, though rather wordy, introduction to the $5-billion U.S. fertility industry. Mundy's style is engaging in general, and the content is captivating on its own because it is so sci-fi to most people. This book is packed full with personal stories from the front lines of "investigative reporting": meet real egg donors and gestational surrogates and their recipients, agonize with real families who are deciding which of their triplets to "selectively reduce," meet real lesbian couples who conceived with donor sperm, etc.

One thing that I didn't like about this book is that Mundy missed, it seems to me, an opportunity to give more of a voice to the children conceived with donor gametes, and more consideration and thought to their rights, problems and concerns. In the one chapter that she does have on the subject of children's rights, the children themselves actually don't get much of a voice. Much of the chapter is again devoted to the perspective of parents and professionals in the fertility industry, who also get the whole rest of the book. The fact that the children only get what is in essence half or less than half of a chapter in a whole book about repro tech is in itself very telling. It seems that the resulting children are often an afterthought in an industry that is geared entirely to satisfying the desires of infertile adults.

The other thing I didn't like was Mundy's occasional editorializing in this book. She is obviously in favor of using the reproductive technologies she writes about, she is pro-choice, and also clearly a Democrat -- and whenever she talks about anyone who has different opinions they are inevitably labeled "far Right". But if that doesn't bother you or you can get past it, then this book is a fairly good read - and certainly an eye-opening first-person account of an enormous industry that most people are not too aware exists.

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.

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.

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!

This is a book about the transformation of the process of human reproduction. It is a book about the whole business of Artificial Reproduction Technology (ART).It is a book about those people who seek to have children through ART and those who supply the services. It is rich in individual case- histories. And it gives a picture of a vast uncontrolled world which is playing a larger and larger part in the story of mankind.
It is a book in which mankind is seen contending with unprecedented situations and questions.
Artifiicial Reproduction technologies which were first introduced to help infertile parents in a short time became means for enabling the creation of families in which only one parent was genetically connected to the child. After this the way became open for the unprecdented capacity of selecting of a 'donor' on the basis of certain desirable qualities. As the technology first developed in the liberal era following the passing of Roe-Wade there was a large degree of laissez- faire carelessness and exploitation in the development of the 'Industry'.
The very process of Artificial Reproduction makes a fundamental change in the situation of humanity. It is no longer necessary for there to be sexual and ideally loving relations between 'man' and 'woman' to have children. This is in itself is such a revolutionary turn about in our situation and conception of ourselves that it seems to me mankind as a whole, and certainly the major religious traditions have not known how to connect this with their own traditional positions.
In any case this work is more a very realistic picture of what is happening in the world of Artificial Reproduction than it is anything else. It has been highly praised in all the reviews I have seen of it, as being clearly and comprehensibly written. It involves an exhaustive research in which many individual case- histories were traced. In the course of this it leads to the consideration of unprecedented situations, many of which create unique moral dilemnas.
Enormous moral dilemnas have developed from the new Industry. Consider the question of 'frozen embryos' the leftovers after other fertilized embryos of the same genetic couple were employed. What does one do with the nearly five- hundred million such frozen embryos in the U.S.? It is the parents choice whether to donate them to other would be parents, or to research, or have them implanted in the mother. They too have the alternatives of keeping them frozen or 'disposing of them'. What is the moral status of any of the above decisions?
One important side of this is the author's look at the relatively uncontrolled private sector involved in selling various technologies, and elements in the process of reproduction.
For most readers a great share of the interest will be in reading of the individual cases, of those desperate to have children. One major question of course is whether 'happy endings' for prospective parents now will mean future well- being for the children involved. Another major question of course is the overall effect on the human community as a whole. Those critical of the excessive and over-liberal use of these technologies claim children are being brought into their world whose futures will be fraught with perilous identity- confusions.
Those who believe in the importance of the two- parent nuclear family will be appalled at the chaos created by the new technologies.
Even those who strongly support the technologies can be troubled by the separation which occurs in so many cases between 'genetic parents' and 'those who actually raise the children.
The changes are very great indeed. Those interested in the overall situation and meaning of what it is to be human would do well to read this book.

This book is a must-read for anyone who is considering having children. Even though I conceived two kids with no medical intervention, I am glad that I know more about the business of conception. Liza Mundy has done a fantastic job presenting the facts about the latest reproductive technologies. I hope every prospective parent reads this book before they plan their family.

The author relies on the most controversial headlines rather than the "average" fertility patient. She sensationalizes something that is rather mundane in many ways.

Focusing on gay couples, HOMs, and other sensational stories while selecting inaccurate pictures of the current state of the ART business in the USA leads to a misleading book. A better book is The Baby Business by Debora Spar. Though, she does fall short, Ms. Spar's book is much more accurate and less sensationalistic.