Most HESCs are derived from embryos that were created for infertility treatment but that were in excess of what the infertile individual(s) ultimately needed to achieve a pregnancy.
To summarise the plot, barely: our resurrected Belacqua is first accosted by a prostitute called Zabarovna Privet, then the infertile Lord Gall of Wormwood, and finally, as his own headstone, the groundsman/gravedigger Doyle (who, the text tells us, had appeared unnamed in "Draff", the final story in Pricks).
Such infertile and adoptive "marriages" rest on a decoupling of actual sex and the rearing of children.
The 45-year-old doctor, who was told 13 years ago that she was infertile, is now a licensed herbalist and acupuncturist as well as a physician and the mother of an 11-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy, both conceived "alternatively".
While Mr McInerney does drop the odd ironic detail an argument over whether Israeli or American military gas masks are more reliable in the main he relates his story with po-faced earnestness.A would-be screenwriter married to an editor who runs with Salman Rushdie's set, Corrine was left infertile by a bout of anorexia and has borne twins only with the help of her sister's implanted eggs.
Why let an infertile or postmenopausal woman marry a man, but begrudge a wedding ceremony for a lesbian couple anxious to have kids?
If bigger trials confirm Dr Doody's results, then many more infertile women than now will find the cost of IVF within their reach.
Of an admittedly small sample of 37 infertile women in his study, two-thirds became pregnant after a single incubation, regardless of which method was employed.
Yet infertile people in the country where it all began are among the least likely in the rich world to receive what is now a standard treatment for their condition.
The report noted Mr Misick's reputation for enjoying a "Hollywood lifestyle" and said his spending habits "far exceeded his salary and allowances".Thirty years ago the islanders scratched a living from infertile soil, salt pans and fishing.
In Britain, for example, paying surrogates is illegal, and an infertile couple cannot advertise to find one.
