Carl Djerassi, at 91, is still making predictions about the future of sex, baby making, and abortion. In his usual fashion, he’s making waves.

Known mostly for his work developing the oral contraceptive birth control pill in the early 1950s, he’s now predicting that abortions will become obsolete because people will opt for sterilization, making his Pill invention redundant. On his view, people will turn to advanced reproductive technologies to make all their babies in the laboratory, ensuring babies are born to their parents’ specifications.

I’ve written before on the “End of Sex,” and the predictions of others that in 50 years babies won’t be made the old fashioned way, but the new fashioned laboratory high-tech way.

Djerassi doubles down on these predictions suggesting people will seek permanent sterilization and that sex will be purely recreational by 2050.

I’m always skeptical when people predict “in 50 years” or “by 2050,” but given the uncritical acceptance of many modern technologies and the current insatiable demand for babies by design and casual sex without babies, maybe Dr. Djerassi is prophetic in his provocacy?

Only time, give or take 50 years, will tell.

Author Profile

Jennifer Lahl, CBC Founder
Jennifer Lahl, CBC Founder
Jennifer Lahl, MA, BSN, RN, is founder and president of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. Lahl couples her 25 years of experience as a pediatric critical care nurse, a hospital administrator, and a senior-level nursing manager with a deep passion to speak for those who have no voice. Lahl’s writings have appeared in various publications including Cambridge University Press, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News, and the American Journal of Bioethics. As a field expert, she is routinely interviewed on radio and television including ABC, CBS, PBS, and NPR. She is also called upon to speak alongside lawmakers and members of the scientific community, even being invited to speak to members of the European Parliament in Brussels to address issues of egg trafficking; she has three times addressed the United Nations during the Commission on the Status of Women on egg and womb trafficking.