Inside the Hidden Global Supply Chain for Frozen Sperm, Eggs, and Embryos
By Sarah Zhang,
WIRED
| 04. 25. 2016
Untitled Document
In a world with porous borders and wildly divergent surrogacy laws, making a baby can be a global affair: The eggs might come from a woman in South Africa, the sperm from a man in Canada, and the surrogate herself might be in Cambodia. What connects them, literally, is a cold chain.
Typical cold chains—made up of refrigerated trucks and shipping containers—bring us perfectly preserved bananas from Central America, seafood from Asia, and vaccines from Europe. But it takes a specialized cold chain to transport finicky eggs, sperm, and embryos across the world for surrogacy via in vitro fertilization. To expectant parents, that material is more precious any other possible cargo. And they’re willing to pay. A lot.
Continue reading on WIRED...
Image via Cyroport
Related Articles
By Tarandeep Hira, BioNews | 05.26.2026
Fifteen people, including five doctors, have been charged in Maharashtra, India, following an investigation into the exploitation of financially vulnerable egg donors.
A nearly 5000-page chargesheet was filed before a court in Ulhasnagar. The investigation began in February after a...
By Aarya Chand, The Kathmandu Post | 05.21.2026
KATHMANDU – When Padma was 22, she was diagnosed with cancer. What followed were three brutal cycles of chemotherapy—each necessary, each taking something from her. Doctors warned that the radiation would damage her ovaries. But Padma was fighting to stay...
By Caroline Kitchener, The New York Times | 05.24.2026
More than anything else in the world, Erin Millender longed to be a mother. She already had a day care picked out, a Pack ’n Play stashed in her basement. She’d tried Chinese pregnancy teas and midnight fertility ceremonies under...
By Nanette Elster, Kayhan Parsi, and Art Caplan, The American Journal of Bioethics | 05.06.2026
“Better babies.” “Fitter families.” “Survival of the fittest.” “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” These phrases are not merely historical reminders of the United States’ regrettable eugenic past but are appearing in an increasingly eugenic present. Eugenics may have seemed...
