The Center for Genetics and Society brings social justice and human rights to the center of public and policy discussions about human genetics and assisted reproduction.

Featured

Taking a closer look at recent reporting on gene-edited embryos

By Katie Hasson | 07.11.2026
Biopolitical Times

Media coverage of recent developments in embryo gene editing might seem to suggest that gene-edited babies are close to becoming a reality. As tech billionaires eager to profit off of techno-eugenics invest in “designer baby” technologies, attempts to normalize heritable genome editing – which remains unsafe and raises significant ethical and societal concerns – are especially dangerous. It’s worth taking a closer look at these developments and what they mean, in a way that pushes back on narratives normalizing the...

Genomics

Palantir Has a Hand in NIH’s Most Ambitious Health Initiative

By Julia Métraux, Mother Jones [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 07.07.2026

Aggregated News

During his 2015 State of the Union address, then-President Barack Obama announced what he promised would be an ambitious public health project. “Tonight, I’m launching a new Precision Medicine Initiative to bring us closer to curing diseases like cancer and diabetes...

U.S. Federal

Book Review: How to Rule the World

By Pete Shanks | 07.10.2026
Biopolitical Times

The title of this book is clever, not least because it is borrowed from a very secret society of a...

Patents & Other IP

‘I didn’t come here to get rich’: new research on the lives of Ukrainian women in Georgia’s surrogacy boom

By Olga Oleinikova, Medea Badashvili, and Polina Vlasenko, Guest Contributors | 04.23.2026
Biopolitical Times

“I didn’t come here to get rich. I came because I had no other way to keep my son safe...

Other Countries

Biopolitical Times

Reviews of Two Books Wrestling with Genomics

By Pete Shanks | 08.28.2026

What We Inherit by Sam Trejo and Daphne O. Martschenko; and Original Sin by Kathryn Paige Harden have a great...

Human Genetic Modification

Gene therapy trial characterised by hype and hubris ends in a child's death

By Claire Robinson and Jonathan Matthews, Guest Contributors | 08.25.2026

This is an excerpt of an article originally published on August 1, 2026 at GMWatch.

A six-year-old girl has...

U.S. Federal

Taking a closer look at recent reporting on gene-edited embryos

By Katie Hasson | 07.11.2026

Media coverage of recent developments in embryo gene editing might seem to suggest that gene-edited babies are close to becoming...

Genomics

News

When the Choice to Be Childless Is Not Your Own

By Anna Louie Sussman, The New York Times | 08.21.2026

Since in vitro fertilization was invented nearly 50 years ago, at least 10 million children who would not otherwise exist have been brought into the world. New constellations of families — older moms, same-sex parents, single dads — have flourished...

U.S. Federal

The Return of a Discredited Pseudoscience

By Dan Falk, Nautilus | 08.20.2026

The pseudoscience of eugenics, founded on the mistaken notion that nature envisions some “right” combination of genes, and that selective breeding can improve the human race, is making a comeback. While the heyday of eugenics was a century ago, the...

Genetic Selection

Three deaths in China shake trust in the country's speedy clinical trial system

By Ryan Cross, Endpoints News | 08.20.2026

China’s cheap, fast and quiet system for testing cutting-edge medicines is facing scrutiny after the deaths of three people in investigator-initiated trials.

The studies, also known as IITs, allow experimental cell and gene therapies to be tested without oversight from...

Policies

Map of Countries Impacted Most by Trump Birthright Citizen Surrogacy Order

By Jenni Fink, Newsweek | 08.19.2026

“Donald Trump” by Gage Skidmore  is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

President Donald Trump's latest effort to limit birthright citizenship could have consequences for the international surrogacy industry, potentially affecting thousands of intended parents from overseas who travel...

Policies

Video
Reproduction and Family Formation: The State and the Market
Use Gene Editing to Make Better Babies | Debate | Intelligence Squared U.S.
The 'Perfect' Baby?: The Dangers of Gene Editing in Assisted Reproduction