The Complicated History of Surrogacy From 'Baby M' to Kim Kardashian and Kanye West
By Olivia B. Waxman, Time | 01. 16. 2018
Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West have announced that their third child, a daughter, was born on Monday via surrogate. “We are incredibly grateful to our surrogate who made our dreams come true with the greatest gift one could give,” Kardashian West said in a blog post sharing the news.
They are the latest celebrity couple to raise awareness about this method of having a child, in which a third party carries the pregnancy on behalf of the parents. It’s an idea with extremely old origins — as TIME has noted previously, the Old Testament story of Abraham and Hagar conceiving a child with his wife Sarah’s blessing is essentially a story of surrogacy — but it has only become more widely known and debated in the United States in the last three decades, thanks in large part to a controversial and headline-grabbing case that got the nation talking about the subject.
Here’s what happened: In 1985, a biochemist named Bill Stern and his pediatrician wife Elizabeth Stern, faced with the fact that Elizabeth’s multiple sclerosis would prevent her from...
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On July 17, the UK’s Nuffield Council on Bioethics released “Genome Editing and Human Reproduction: Social and Ethical Issues.” The nearly 200-page report wrapped up several years of work for the ethics think tank that began with their initial 2016 inquiry into human genome editing and included a heavily criticized public consultation process in 2017. The report’s main conclusion regarding human germline modification was that it “could be ethically acceptable in some circumstances.” Karen Yeung, chair of the...
By Daniel Engber, Slate | 07.31.2018
On May 18, W. French Anderson, known as the “father of gene therapy,” was released from prison on parole. Two weeks later, the 81-year-old scientist, pediatrician, and ex-con welcomed science writer Sharon Begley to his home in California for several...
Biopolitical Times used to have a regular feature called “Gene of the Week,” in which we skewered the propensity of some journalists, university public relations offices, and even scientists for ascribing particular traits or habits to some specific gene. Mostly, we made fun of them, but there was often a serious criticism behind the humor.
Sadly, the concept and concern that provoked the series are still with us. In fact, there’s a new one, more damaging and significant...
Jesse Reynolds started it. Now a fondly recalled CGS alumnus, Jesse was in 2007 the primary blogger at Biopolitical Times and noted a New York Times story about kids who are picky eaters. The article mentioned a study claiming that “childhood neophobia” is 78% genetic: “It’s not your cooking, it’s your genes.” Jesse’s mordant headline, on October 15, 2007, was File Under: Gene of the Week.
The first post with what became the standard headline format was on December...
