Pandora's Baby: How the First Test Tube Babies Sparked the Reproductive Revolution [Paperback]

Robin Marantz Henig (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0879698098 | ISBN-13: 978-0879698096 | Publication Date: May 30, 2006

This is the highly acclaimed book by Robin Marantz Henig about the early days of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and the ethical and legal battles waged in the 1970s, as well as the scientific advances that eventually changed the public perception of test tube babies. Published in paperback for the first time, this timely and provocative book brilliantly presents the scientific and ethical dilemmas in the ongoing debate over what it means to be human in a technological age. Related Titles from the Publisher Abraham Lincoln's DNA Neither Gods Nor Beasts Times of Triumph, Times of Doubt The Strongest Boy in the World

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her judicious history of the development of in vitro fertilization (IVF), NBCC finalist Henig (The Monk in the Garden) notes that many of the objections posed to IVF in the 1970s would later be used against human cloning, in particular the argument that artificial reproduction interfered in intimate processes best left to nature and that it was the first step on a "slippery slope" leading to genetic engineering and selective breeding. Ironically, because IVF was such a political hot potato, the U.S. government declined to fund research in the field, leaving it essentially unregulated except by the imperatives of a marketplace. Henig's narrative begins in the days when IVF was controversial, experimental science; she describes the work of maverick Columbia University researcher Landrum Shettles; of English doctors Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe, responsible for the birth of the first "test tube baby," Louise Brown, in 1978; of Howard and Georgeanna Jones, who made the East Virginia Medical School a pioneering IVF center; and of doctors and philosophers in the new field of bioethics who strove to get a grip on the moral implications of it all. Few of the more frightening predictions about IVF have come true, the author notes, but the rate of birth defects in IVF babies is much higher than in normal conceptions. We don't know where reproductive technology ultimately will take society, Henig concludes, but it's likely that "we will adapt to new discoveries the way we have so often adapted." Her level-headed book provides a welcome context for the current debate over cloning.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Once upon a time, not so long ago, two couples, one in the U.S and the other in England, each wanted a baby. The English couple gave birth to a bouncing baby girl. Alas, the American couple gave birth to a lawsuit. Yet both, along with attendant physicians, researchers, hospital administrators, lawyers, and politicians, together gave birth to a major controversy over the notion and reality of scientific experiments in human procreation. Quoting from authors including Mary Shelley (Frankenstein) and Carl Sagan (Broca's Brain), science and medicine specialist Henig writes intelligently about the raging discussion over the first instances of in vitro fertilization in the 1970s. She profiles the individuals involved, touching on similar research around the globe, and examines the good and ill consequences to date of science's foray into human reproduction and the implications of that foray. Henig manages to treat a complex and emotionally charged topic evenhandedly even as research presses ever forward with cloning and cross-species experimentation. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press (May 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879698098
• ISBN-13: 978-0879698096
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,021,098 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A delightful guide through a bioethical thicket, April 14, 2004

By 

Indienne - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pandora's Baby: How the First Test Tube Babies Sparked the Reproductive Revolution (Hardcover)

Adjectives like "judicious" and "level headed" (see the Publisher's Weekly review) don't do justice to this lively and probing and timely book. Henig has the gift of conveying complex scientific information painlessly and the stories she tells are riveting, full of hubris, lawsuits,medical cowboys, desperate would-be parents, nutty fundamentalists (in one protest at an in-vitro clinic, they carried a sign that read "Incest in a Test Tube") and, of course, politics. If you've been following the debate over stem cell research, cloning or the work of the President's commission on bioethics ( its chairman,Leon Kass, appears in this book as an early opponent of IVF ) Pandora's Baby is invaluable. And if you haven't been following, this is a great place to start.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The story of a technology under fire, April 5, 2004

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pandora's Baby: How the First Test Tube Babies Sparked the Reproductive Revolution (Hardcover)

In Pandora's Baby, Robin Henig tells of a confrontation which came to a head in 1973, where a hospital administrator in New York learned of a rogue experiment in progress which might have created the first human fetus through in vitro fertilization. His decision fostered a new era in reproduction technology and issues which continues to this day, and Henig's survey of IVF procedures and history provides the story of a technology under fire.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Topic - Dry Read, December 27, 2006

By 

N. Sexton (AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pandora's Baby: How the First Test Tube Babies Sparked the Reproductive Revolution (Paperback)

I got this book after reading the excerpts from a online book club since it is a topic I am interested in. Overall the book was very difficult to get through. It is really about medical ethics than it really is about the history of assisted reproduction. The "cast of characters" was very confusing to follow. To learn more about the couple you meet in the beginning takes chapters. I am not a science person but enjoy reading factual accounts. This book is more of an education lesson than entertainment.