The 'world's oldest baby' is challenging what we think we know about IVF

Lindsey and Tim Pierce first held their newborn son in July — more than three decades after he was conceived.

Born from a frozen embryo the Ohio couple adopted, Thaddeus Daniel Pierce is being called “the world’s oldest baby” because he is the oldest known frozen embryo to be brought to term. As explained in MIT Technology Review , Thaddeus was conceived through in vitro fertilization in 1994; he has a biological sister who is 30 years old.

The circumstances of his birth challenge what we think we know about IVF — what the limits are, in medicine and in morality.

Since Louise Brown, the world’s first “ test tube baby ,” was born in 1978, the technology has enabled millions of people to become parents — but also created a vexing moral dilemma: what is to become of all the embryos cre