July 7, 2011; Source: The Times of India | To Hatch, a charity that provides advice to couples seeking in vitro fertilization (IVF) has been given permission by the UK Gambling Commission to run a lottery with a monthly prize of IVF treatments worth £25,000. The tickets will cost £20. According to this report, “The competition promises that winners will be given accommodation in a luxury hotel before being chauffeur driven to a clinic for treatment. If standard IVF fails, they will be offered donor eggs, reproductive surgery or even a surrogate birth.”

Apparently this prize is transferable. You can enter and give the baby opp to someone else.

Predictably, not everyone thinks the idea is so great. Josephine Quintavalle, director of the Comment on Reproductive Ethics has said that the raffle “demeans the whole nature of human reproduction.” “This latest initiative, turning the process of reproduction into a buy-your-ticket lottery, is absolutely unacceptable and quite possibly breaks European Law on the commercialization of human tissue,” she said. “It is in this area where an immediate investigation should be demanded. It is surely not legal to pay £20 to have access to another woman’s womb?” Still, according to a blog post on the Washington Post the raffle has created enough demand to cause To Hatch’s website to become overwhelmed and crash as of Wednesday afternoon.—Ruth McCambridge