ABA Family Legal Guide

Health-Care Law

Specific Issues in Health Care

Assisted Reproductive Technologies

What are assisted reproductive technologies?

Baby making used to involve some nontechnical procedures—would-be mothers and fathers having intercourse. Now a person who has a medical condition that impairs his or her ability to have a baby can use assisted reproductive technologies, a term which includes in vitro fertilization, gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT) and other technologies, to conceive children.