ABSTRACT
Owing to new developments in reproductive medicine our room for manoeuvre in almost all aspects of human reproduction has considerably increased. Not only can we choose whether or not to have a child, we are also just beginning to find methods which help us to have a child which meets at least some of our expectations. Whereas previously infertile couples had no choice – they had to accept their reproductive fate and integrate their childlessness into their concept of life, nowadays the situation is very different. Infertile couples who otherwise could not have had children can now often have a child with the help of reproductive technology involving in vitro fertilisation (TVF). In principle, IVF also enables us to influence the characteristics of the children we may have. By using sperm or ovum donors for IVF, by sex selection, by pre-implantation diagnosis (PID), or perhaps in some years’ time even by directly modifying some of the genes, we can affect the genetic composition of our descendants.
