New, fast and easy: isn't that what we want?

This week's BioNews reports on a possible technique for automating some of the stages of IVF treatment. In response to news of the IVF 'chips', most journalists felt compelled to mention Brave New World, Aldous Huxley's nightmarish vision of the future, published in 1932.

The memorable feature of Brave New World was its portrayal of the mass production of babies, programmed to fit into a regimented social hierarchy. It's not clear quite how IVF chips bring us one step closer to anything resembling Huxley's brave new world. They might make the embryological aspects of IVF more controlled and therefore more successful. But they won't make embryos all the same and they won't make them the products of a 'hatching' process with no prospective mother in whom they will grow.

Of course, most journalists know full well that this is not a likely future for baby-making, at least during my life (which I'm hoping will last another 50 years). But there is something seemingly irresistible to them about the idea of a brave new world. For it is a shorthand for a technological, depersonalised, mass-produced kind of future that we all instinctively recoil from. Something which is faster and easier and more effective is, we are encouraged to think, somehow devoid of meaning or importance.

But if IVF were faster or more effective or less stressful, would that make it meaningless, something that people undertook on a whim? It's hard to see how it would. A similar thing could be said about a new test for Down's syndrome which has been received some press attention this week. Would a more accurate test for Down's which could be performed earlier in pregnancy make the decision about what to do with a test result any easier? It might make the options clearer, but it won't make choosing between them any more - or less - difficult.