Inside the Hidden Global Supply Chain for Frozen Sperm, Eggs, and Embryos

In a world with porous borders and wildly divergent surrogacy laws, making a baby can be a global affair: The eggs might come from a woman in South Africa, the sperm from a man in Canada, and the surrogate herself might be in Cambodia. What connects them, literally, is a cold chain.

Typical cold chains—made up of refrigerated trucks and shipping containers—bring us perfectly preserved bananas from Central America, seafood from Asia, and vaccines from Europe. But it takes a specialized cold chain to transport finicky eggs, sperm, and embryos across the world for surrogacy via in vitro fertilization. To expectant parents, that material is more precious any other possible cargo. And they’re willing to pay. A lot.

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Image via Cyroport