The Embryo FactoryThe business logic of made-to-order babies.

(Continued from page 2)

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The first thing to go will be the fixed price of embryos. Ryan says "high demand" egg donors can earn up to $15,000 per cycle, more than four times what other women get. "Additional compensation is offered to those donors who have earned a post-graduate degree [or] have a unique skill, characteristic or trait," she tells them. That cost will have to be passed along. Meanwhile, competition will generate a more affordable low-end market. Ph.D. embryos will cost more than B.A. embryos.

Next comes the integration of surrogacy. If packaging eggs and sperm with IVF improves quality control and cuts expenses, why not add gestation? The embryo you're buying is biologically foreign to you, anyway. Why risk it in your infertile, 40-year-old body when Ryan can find a healthy 25-year-old to carry it for you? She already advertises this service for an extra fee: "pre-screened surrogate mothers available." And since her embryo sales pitch relies heavily on the bottom line—a superior "pregnancy success rate"—why not sell the embryo-surrogate package based on its birth-success rate? That's what buyers ultimately care about. With a network of reliable surrogates, Ryan or a competitor might even make payment contingent on the final product. Cash on delivery.

To Ryan, embryos are inventory. "I saw a demand for something and created the product," she told to the San Antonio Current. The doctor who mixed Ryan's first batch of embryos was aghast to discover their fate, but Ryan insists, "If they are my embryos, legally, what I do with those embryos is really none of her business." What if clients aren't satisfied with the embryos? "If they don't think it's right for them, they don't have to take them," she shrugs. With surrogacy, that policy could be extended for weeks. Tested, personalized, affordable, disposable. You've come a long way, baby.

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William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War. Follow him on Twitter here.

Illustration by Robert Neubecker.

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