Legacies of Eugenics: An Introduction
By Osagie K. Obasogie,
L.A. Review of Books
| 04. 17. 2024
When Robert G. Edwards won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2010 for developing in vitro fertilization (IVF) decades earlier in 1978, many members of the scientific community sighed in relief. This honor, they felt, was long overdue. A beloved researcher, Edwards was revered for making a profound contribution to humanity. Edwards was 84 years old and suffering from dementia at the time of the announcement, leading some supporters to worry that he might not live long enough to receive the honor. (Nobel Prizes cannot be awarded posthumously, which is why his collaborator, Patrick Steptoe, who died in 1988, did not share this accolade.) Edwards died three years later, in 2013.
Edwards’s creation of the world’s first IVF baby, Louise Brown, in Oldham, England, had been anything but unproblematic. An enormous amount of consternation surrounded the lead-up to and immediate aftermath of this scientific breakthrough. The Vatican was up in arms. Pundits warned of a “brave new world” of babies made in test tubes. Critics declared IVF unethical and “against nature” itself. They thought it would turn...
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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.
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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.
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