It’s a sunny day in May, the relentless kind that sees people scurrying for the shade of roadside trees and the borrowed air con ditioning of corner shops. I jump off bus 405 as it stops along Furong Road, a congested six-lane thoroughfare that splits Changsha, the capital of China’s Hunan Province, north to south.
Just off Furong, Xiangya Road is its usual bustling self. Cars honk and pedestrians push past pharmacies, food stalls, clothing shops, vegetable stands, shoe-shiners, and fortune tellers. I approach 84 Xiangya Road where the 15-story CITIC-Xiangya Reproductive and Genetic Hospital lies, home to one of the world’s largest sperm banks and fertility clinics. Hordes of people are milling around the entrance. Some have slept outside on the pavement in order to be among the first to enter once doors open for the day. Most of them are there to seek fertility treatment, clutching their queuing...
