News
Dina Rickman
Nov 10, 2014
Sex could be only for fun with humans using IVF to procreate within the next 36 years, according to Professor Carl Djerassi, the scientist who invented the contraceptive pill.
Djerassi, now 91, predicted that women in their 20s would use IVF to delay pregnancy without worrying about their biological clocks by 2050, telling the Telegraph:
Over the next few decades, say by the year 2050, more IVF fertilisations will occur among fertile women than the current five million fertility-impaired ones. For them the separation between sex and reproduction will be 100 per cent.
In 1951, Djerassi led work to produce the world's first synthetic version of progesterone – a steroid hormone pumped out by the body to maintain pregnancy – that could be taken orally. The final product, norethisterone, was used in the first successful combined contraceptive pill released in 1961, credited with starting a global wave of sexual liberation.
Additional reporting: Independent journalists
Top 100
The Conversation (0)