In Britain, during the 1970s, the research team of Edwards, Steptoe and Purdy carried out a series of investigations into the in vitro fertilization (IVF) of human embryos which led, in 1978, to the birth of the first baby conceived outside a woman's body. This achievement was widely publicized and quickly emulated by medical scientists around the world. By 1984, more than one hundred IVF clinics had been established in such scientifically developed countries as Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Israel, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States. In Britain, the number of IVF centres and the number of scientists engaged in research on human IVF embryos expanded rapidly. By the early 1990s, there were seventeen locations in the UK where projects in embryo research were under way and sixty-eight clinics employing IVF and related techniques for purposes of assisted human reproduction. In 1990, 1,443 women gave birth in Britain with the help of these techniques. By the early 1990s, an estimated 20,000 ‘test-tube babies’ had been born around the world, about one third of them in the USA.

The immediate exploitation of major technical advances is normal in present-day medical science. In this respect, the rapid growth of embryo research and assisted reproduction in Britain and elsewhere after the first IVF birth was not exceptional. In various other ways, however, the development of this area of scientific activity was unusual. This was particularly so in the UK.