This archive report was first published on 3 July 2019.
Published on July 3, 2019, by BBC Lifestyle, the article explores the potential impact of IVF technology on our attitudes towards sex.
With the birth of the world's first 'test tube baby' in 1978, around eight million people have been born through IVF. As the technology advances, Henry T. Greely predicts that in 20 to 40 years, most people with good health coverage will choose to conceive in a lab.
Greely's book, The End of Sex And The Future of Human Reproduction, delves into the legal and ethical challenges facing preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). He believes that as time passes, people will come to prefer reproducing non-sexually, and the public will tolerate and eventually prefer this method.
David Halperin asks in his essay, 'What will sex mean in a world where babies are made in labs?' He questions the assumption that sex must always have a purpose, and suggests that sex may be about something else, something higher and nobler.
Aristotle's proof, as read by Halperin, demonstrates that sex is not the final aim of erotic desire. Instead, sex aims at love, and the real reason we have sex is to love and be loved.
Halperin thinks that the most interesting question to ask is not about the relationship between sex and love, but the surprising relationship between sex and erotic desire. If Aristotle is correct, then sex has no erotic purpose, and its real aim lies elsewhere.
