Technology plays an increasingly important role in our lives and one area that will be affected is that of human reproduction, according to scientist Henry T. Greely.

Henry T. Greely is the director of the Center for Law and Biosciences, as well as the Neuroscience and Society Program. From the perspective of his expertise, he concluded that sex for reproduction will be replaced by laboratory design in the coming decades.

“I predict that in the future people will continue to have sex, just not so often to reproduce,” explains Dr. Greely. She developed the topic in a book published in 2018: “The End of Sex and the Future of Human Reproduction”.

“In 20-40 years, most of the people who will have a good health insurance policy will choose to conceive children in the laboratory,” the scientist added.

Dr. Greely bases his predictions on the basis of current medical realities. Thus, during the four decades in which in vitro fertilization has been used, approximately 8 million babies were born.

Another practice that has become common in artificial fertilization is pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PDG) and involves taking cells from a fetus to determine if it has inherited some genetic problems from parents.

Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis gives parents the choice to continue the pregnancy with an embryo that does not present genetic risks. Because of this, Dr. Greely believes future parents will opt for artificial reproduction.

“As with many things, there will be a lot of negative initial reactions,” explained Dr. Greely.