A Stanford University professor thinks most Americans will procreate in test tubes instead of the traditional way within two to three decades.
According to Quartz, professor Hank Greely made the claim during the Aspen Ideas Festival last week.
Greely predicted there won't be any cost for this type of fertilization, which some couples now use for a variety of reasons. The service will allow people to select one of several embryos that's been created to ensure they get the gender they want. It will also give parents the ability to choose an embryo that is not predisposed to certain diseases based on DNA analysis.
Greely said the service will be free for parents because the increase in babies who are presumably healthy will result in a drastic decrease in medical costs for babies who require medical assistance after they're born.
"I think different cultures will pick it up at different rates. I think the U.S. will be relatively accepting, Germany with its history is very anti any genetic interventions and I think they're going to be slow," Greely said.
Greely defended the practice despite admitting that there will be people who disagree with it on ethical grounds.
"This is not designer babies or super babies," he said. "This is selecting embryos. You take two people, all you can get out of a baby is what those two people have."
Scientists in Philadelphia, meanwhile, were able to keep premature lambs alive by housing them in an artificial womb.
And American and Canadian researchers discovered they can predict with 97 percent accuracy how likely a person is to have autism by studying brain scans taken at the age of six months.
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