Book description
Compared to the famously fecund rabbit, for whom a single act of
coitus has a 90% chance of creating a litter of up to 12 rabbits,
humans are very infertile animals. Here in the UK, the average chance
of conception is about 18% per month. And in 98% of cases, successful
conception leads only to the birth of a single infant. It is
unsurprising then that huge efforts have been made to increase our fertility.
In vitro fertilisation, first attempted one hundred years
ago, has now become big business. Market forces, combined with the
desperation of many couples to fulfil their biological imperative,
have pushed doctors and scientists closer to the boundaries of what is
desirable or ethical. And as we are increasingly able to access and
control the embryo, the opportunities of altering human genetics to
eradicate disease, but also to change human characteristics, becomes a
real, and to some, frightening possibility.
A Child Against All Odds is a ground-breaking book for Robert
Winston as it falls squarely in his area of expertise. It combines his
work at Hammersmith Hospital as one of the country's leading fertility
specialists, with a hard-hitting, sometimes humorous, often
controversial look at the scientific, social and ethical background of
man's struggle to discover and control the secrets of reproduction.
Drawing on personal and professional experience, it is the definitive
account of modern reproductive technology from a practitioner who has
spent his professional life at the forefront of this most fascinating
and emotive area of science.
Robert Winston is one of the country's best-known scientists. As
Emeritus Professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial College, London, and
an active researcher in reproductive physiology, he has made advances in
fertility medicine and is a leading voice in the debate on embryo
research and genetic engineering. His television series, including
Your Life in Their Hands
,
Making Babies, The Human Body, Child of Our Time, Human Instinct,
Human Mind
and
The Story of God,
have made him a household name across Britain. He became a life peer in
1995.
