In the early 1980s feminist biology professor Ruth Hubbard warned the American Association for the Advancement of Science about the ART's which she felt had not been tested enough, and she was also concerned that In Vitro fertilization required extremely costly and prolonged experimentation with highly skilled professionals and expensive equipment - distorting our health priorities and funneling scarce resources into a questionable effort. Neither Hubbard warnings, nor those of many other feminist biologists, theorists, gynecologists, health workers, and sociologists, have prevented full steam ahead developments which have actualized many of the procedures only speculated about in the '80s. This has been achieved almost exclusively through private funding from fees of willing clients who have given entrepreneurial fertility doctors and genetic scientists unrestricted access to the innermost molecular and physical structures of their bodies as a eugenic experimental theatre. And it has helped to naturalize the idea that creating a child by any means possible is a right that can be exercised by any individual in any way he/she sees fit, without regard to the threats these procedures might pose to the genetic welfare of their offspring, to the germ lines of future generations, to health and environmental resources; and to a just human social development for those who have no access to the range of choices ART presents.

How did this happen so smoothly and seamlessly with so little effective resistance from the general public, and from feminists, for that matter? A major reason has already been mentioned: The fact that ART is conducted almost entirely in the private, "elective" medico/consumer realm. Another, is the seductive ideology of consumer choice and desire. Since it is now technologically possible to choose to improve one's genetic success and that of one's offspring through purchase of ART technologies, a compelling new desire has been created. Many people do not understand how their "individual choices" are fueling this flesh machine. Propelled by new eugenic consciousness and consumer marketing, this machine has opened the possibility for calculatedly and permanently altering the diversity of human germ lines. The exciting adventure of re-engineering the human race from the genes up is presented as a solution to the tragic personal "medical problem" of infertility; and those who question and critique these procedures are made to feel churlish indeed. 

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