The unintended consequences of fertility treatment breakthroughs

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Following on from our recent episode about making IVF more ‘ethical’, we zoom out a bit in this conversation to think about other questions presented by the huge advances made by reproductive science and medicine in the last 50 years. Has the way IVF breaks down procreation to its respective elements created in our culture a “Lego kit” approach to our humanity, believing it is endlessly remixable through dozens of permutations? How has access to this technology also affected our social understanding parenthood and required the law to change? What is lost when we move reproduction away from the intimacy of sex between husband and wife and into the lab? And how on earth are Christian couples struggling to conceive to navigate all this theological and ethical complexity?

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Released on 3 Jun 2026

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