Baby Business: How Money, Science and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception

Despite legislation that claims to prohibit it, there is a thriving market for babies spreading across the globe. Fueled by rapid advances in reproductive medicine and the desperate desires of millions of would-be parents, the acquisition of children—whether through donated eggs, rented wombs, or cross-border adoption—has become a multibillion dollar industry that has left science, law, ethics, and commerce deeply at odds.

In The Baby Business, Debora Spar argues that it is time to ackn…