The human fertility industry: creating and destroying human life for profit?

Instead, these medical-commercial hybrids are writing their own rule books.

The recent news about saviour siblings is a perfect example. The public face of Sydney IVF, its medical director, Professor Robert Jansen, says that his independent ethics committee gave it a thumbs-up. How independent is this ethics committee? Who sits on it? And by whose criteria was it deemed ethical? By Peter Singer? By George Pell?

What happens next, now that Sydney IVF Limited says that it is ethical to cull embryos and create tissue-compatible siblings? It already offers a service which many of us feel queasy about - sex selection. What about super-intelligent, super-athletic GM babies? What if a cloned baby were the only way to cure a sick baby? Currently these services are illegal. But the law could change. Will its ethics committee gave a green light then?

Most of the disputes over “designer babies” have centred on the fate of the embryos which are created, culled and destroyed in the process. This is a serious ethical issue. But it is not the only ethical issue. The commodification of human life for commercial profit is another.

IVF long ago ceased to be purely a medical matter. With a million IVF babies around the world - and 40,000 in Australia - it has become a transnational industry with links to pharmaceutical and biotech giants. Its development is being guided not just by the needs of its patients, but also by shareholder demands for an adequate return on their investment.

It’s commonly said that our ethics is playing catch-up to science. But in the case of IVF, it might be just as true to say that ethics is playing catch-up to business. It’s time the government spotlighted an industry which tailors its ethical cloth to match its products and is constantly pushing the law to the limit. Because this is no ordinary industry. Other businesses manufacture widgets; IVF businesses manufacture lives.