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

The Shameful Legacy of Tuskegee Is Still Relevant

By Pete Shanks | 01.28.2026
Biopolitical Times

Group of Tuskegee Experiment test subjects
Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Every generation needs to learn about what is commonly known as the Tuskegee syphilis study, which ran from 1932 to 1972. (Officially, it was the U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee, Alabama, which gets the emphasis right.) For many people, the history is hard to believe, though it is hardly unique. Of the 600 subjects, all Black men, 399 had syphilis, for which...

U.S. Federal

The Mysterious Eugenics of Aesthetic Taste

By Michael Rossi, The Los Angeles Review of Books | 01.11.2026

Aggregated News

This is the 10th installment in the Legacies of Eugenics series, which features essays by leading thinkers devoted to exploring the history of eugenics and the ways it shapes our present. The series is organized by Osagie K. Obasogie in...

Arts & Culture

More and “Better” Babies: The Dark Side of the Pronatalist Movement

By Daphne O. Martschenko and Julia E. H. Brown, Hastings Bioethics Forum | 01.14.2026

Aggregated News

There is growing concern that falling fertility rates will lead to economic and demographic catastrophe. The social and political movement...

Genetic Selection

Bay Area Startups Want to Make Genetically Engineered Babies. What Could Go Wrong?

By Grace Won, KQED Forum [with CGS' Katie Hasson] | 12.02.2025

Aggregated News

In the U.S., it’s illegal to edit genes in human embryos with the intention of creating a genetically engineered baby...

Genetic Selection

Biopolitical Times

The Shameful Legacy of Tuskegee Is Still Relevant

By Pete Shanks | 01.28.2026

Group of Tuskegee Experiment test subjects
Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Every generation needs to learn about what is commonly...

U.S. Federal

Some of Our Favorite 2025 Blog Posts

By Pete Shanks | 01.06.2026

Following a long-standing CGS tradition, we present a selection of our favorite Biopolitical Times posts of the past year.

In...

Policies

Good Trouble

By Pete Shanks | 12.18.2025

A Review of Exposed by Becky McClain

“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic...

Society

News

Jeffrey Epstein Couldn’t Stop Emailing People About Eugenics

By Julia Métraux, Mother Jones | 02.10.2026

Why was Jeffrey Epstein obsessed with genes? In the latest tranche of Epstein records and emails made available by the Department of Justice, themes of genes, genetics, and IQ—alongside more explicit threads of white supremacy—keep cropping up, often adjacent to Epstein’s...

Bioethics

A California Question: How to Turn Billions of Dollars into Revolutionary Gene and Stem Cell Therapies?

By David Jensen, California Stem Cell Report | 02.10.2026

Touchy issues involving accusations that California’s $12 billion gene and stem cell research agency is pushing aside “good science” in favor of new priorities and preferences will be aired again in late March at a public meeting in Sacramento.

The...

Genomics

Oz Offers Forceful Call for Vaccination as Measles Becomes More Dire

By Teddy Rosenbluth, The New York Times | 02.09.2026

Dr. Mehmet Oz has urged Americans to get vaccinated against measles, one of the strongest endorsements of the vaccine yet from a top health official in the Trump administration, which has repeatedly undermined confidence in vaccine safety.

Dr. Oz, the...

U.S. Federal

The Babies Kept in a Mysterious Los Angeles Mansion

By Ava Kofman, The New Yorker | 02.09.2026

1. The Surrogates

In the delicate jargon of the fertility industry, a woman who carries a child for someone else is said to be going on a “journey.” Kayla Elliott began hers in February, 2024, not long after she posted...

U.S. Federal

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