IMAGINE the following festive scene. A couple sits in the family room by the Christmas tree, the woman visibly pregnant. A fire roars in the hearth. The man pulls out a large envelope with a silver bow and hands it to his partner. Smiling with expectation, she tears it open to find an embossed certificate. “Merry Christmas,” the certificate proclaims. “Redeem this gift for 25 years of cold storage for your baby’s umbilical cord blood.” “Oh honey,” she exclaims, “you shouldn’t have!”
One company, Smart Cells International, has sold dozens of Christmas certificates like this to parents and grandparents of…
