Beyond IVF: Eugenics and Reproductive Biotechnology
By Jennifer Denbow,
Nursing Clio
| 10. 31. 2024
Access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) has emerged as a crucial issue in the 2024 election. While the Republican Party Platform claims support for access to IVF, many backers of Donald Trump and Project 2025 have pushed for restrictions on IVF. The Republican-backed Life at Conception Act would declare that an embryo is a human being from “the moment of fertilization.” If it passes, it would endanger IVF treatments across the country. As Senator, Trump’s vice-presidential candidate JD Vance voted against the opposing Right to IVF Act. In contrast, Kamala Harris has committed to access to IVF.
While IVF should absolutely be legally protected, politicians and public commentators should not flatten discussions of reproductive biotechnology as a simple choice between access and restriction. What is missing from this debate is the complex terrain that prospective parents have to navigate regarding reproductive genetic technologies. Over the past 25 years, biotechnology companies have rapidly developed a range of reproductive technologies, from non-invasive prenatal testing to polygenic embryo screening. Companies and researchers claim that other genetic detection, selection, and editing tools are on...
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By Emma McDonald Kennedy
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In the leadup to the 2024 election, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to make IVF more accessible. He made the commitment central to his campaign, even referring to himself as the “father of IVF.” In his first month in office, Trump issued an executive order promising to expand IVF access. The order set a 90-day deadline for policy recommendations for “lowering costs and reducing barriers to IVF,” although it didn’t make any substantive reproductive healthcare policy changes.
The response to the...
Sir Francis Galton, 1890s, by Eveleen Myers (née Tennant)
npg.org
Public Domain via Wikipedia
As has been discussed in recent issues of Biopolitical Times (1, 2), there are, increasingly, companies that claim to be selling parents better babies by selecting the “best” embryos. These services don’t come cheap – think $50,000, or even more, for embryo testing, plus perhaps as much again for IVF and concomitant services. To most of us, that is extremely expensive...
By Margaux MacColl, The San Francisco Standard | 09.17.2025
Designer babies are coming soon to an IVF clinic near you.
Nucleus Genomics, founded by Kian Sadeghi in 2020, when he was just 20, got its start analyzing genomes to weigh a person’s risk of everything from cancer to ADHD...
By Marianne Lamers, NEMO Kennislink [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 09.23.2025
Een rijtje gespreide vulva’s gaapt de bezoeker aan. Zó ziet een bevalling eruit, en zó een baarmoeder met foetus. Een zwangerschap, maar dan zonder zwangere vrouw, gestript van zorgen, gêne en pijn. De zwangerschapsmodellen en oefenbekkens, te zien in de...