The Embryo Factory - The business logic of made-to-order babies @ Slate.com
By William Saletan
Friday morning, an investigator from the Food and Drug Administration spent four hours questioning Jennalee Ryan of San Antonio, Texas, about her new line of business. That business, outlined by Washington Post reporter Rob Stein, is making and selling human embryos from handpicked donors. The FDA says this any rules within its purview. Embryo manufacture? Go right ahead. It's temping to label Ryan a madwoman, as many critics . But that's exactly wrong. Ryan represents the next wave of industrial rationality. She's bringing the innovations of Costco and Burger King to the . To understand her line of work, you have to understand how she got into it. "Twenty years ago, as a single parent, I contacted agencies and attorneys in the hopes of adopting a child," she on her Web site. Unfortunately, "those that were willing to help me offered me older children with emotional problems or severe physical handicaps." These lousy offers drove her to find ways around the system. "With a background in marketing, I came upon the idea of advertising for potential birthmothers," she recalls. "My enterprise grew so quickly, that I soon quit my career in sales and marketing to go into the field of adoption advertising fulltime. ? Within 2 years, we were the largest adoption service in the United States." See the remainder of the article at http://www.slate.com/id/2157495/pagenum/all/#page_start
Friday morning, an investigator from the Food and Drug Administration spent four hours questioning Jennalee Ryan of San Antonio, Texas, about her new line of business. That business, outlined by Washington Post reporter Rob Stein, is making and selling human embryos from handpicked donors. The FDA says this any rules within its purview. Embryo manufacture? Go right ahead. It's temping to label Ryan a madwoman, as many critics . But that's exactly wrong. Ryan represents the next wave of industrial rationality. She's bringing the innovations of Costco and Burger King to the . To understand her line of work, you have to understand how she got into it. "Twenty years ago, as a single parent, I contacted agencies and attorneys in the hopes of adopting a child," she on her Web site. Unfortunately, "those that were willing to help me offered me older children with emotional problems or severe physical handicaps." These lousy offers drove her to find ways around the system. "With a background in marketing, I came upon the idea of advertising for potential birthmothers," she recalls. "My enterprise grew so quickly, that I soon quit my career in sales and marketing to go into the field of adoption advertising fulltime. ? Within 2 years, we were the largest adoption service in the United States." See the remainder of the article at http://www.slate.com/id/2157495/pagenum/all/#page_start
