ABSTRACT
This is a story full of finitude and death but, alas, without an ending. It is also very much a story of life. Our awareness of the biological mechanics of the beginning of new life is enormous and increasing every year. What has been for thousands of years a miraculous mystery is being transformed into a technical intervention – from in-vitro fertilisation to induced labour, total anaesthesia and surgical delivery. As post-menopausal women are implanted with embryonic grandchildren and the multiple foetuses that result from fertility treatments necessitate ‘selective reductions,’ it becomes clear that philosophy, ethics and psychotherapy are struggling in vain to keep up with science.
