Miriam Zoll

Average hospital charges for maternity care in California for ART/AI infants were almost fifty percent higher than for naturally conceived infants.

California researchers confirm what other studies have shown: babies conceived through assisted reproductive technologies (ART) or artificial insemination (AI) and their mothers face higher rates of complications at birth and beyond.

Those of us who bump into age-related infertility end up confronting two tragedies: the loss of our deep primal desire to birth a baby and the realization that we guzzled the Kool-Aid: we built our entire “women-can-finally-have-it-all” adult life on an illusion.

Most of the information circulating about I.V.F. predominantly focuses on its successes; there is virtually no counterbalance to inform us about high failure rates, its devastating effect on couples, or its bioethical conundrums.