Assisted Reproduction at 30

Thirty years ago the assisted reproduction industry was born. From tiny but noisy beginnings, it grew through an occasionally troubled adolescence to maturity. Now it's time for it to become a responsible member of society.

The modern industry's symbolic birth was on July 25th, 1978, when the first "test-tube baby" was born. It was one of the great media launches of all time. Louise Brown, who celebrates her 30th birthday on Friday, is English, but her birth was on the cover of Time magazine before it even happened. As Newsweek said, her first yell was "a cry heard round the brave new world." By late 1978, polls revealed that a remarkable 93% of Americans were aware of her -- and 85% of American women thought infertile couples should have the chance to try in-vitro fertilization (IVF).

"IVF was a gigantic step," according to Alan Trounson, who now runs the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. "We didn't realize it at the time; people didn't think it would work that well. We never envisaged that it would expand so dramatically around the...