Stop Designer Babies protests irresponsible summit plans to legalise human genetic modification
By GMWatch Staff,
GMWatch
| 03. 06. 2023
The anti-eugenics activist group, Stop Designer Babies (SDB),(1) is protesting today outside the ‘International Summit’ on human genetic modification (HGM).(2) SDB and its international partners are pledged to defend international Human Rights treaties and legislation in 70 countries banning HGM, (3) which were created because of the ongoing experience of eugenics. Today, SDB released research that demonstrates the links between the venue, the summit chair and the Eugenics Society, links which are doubly disturbing given that HGM was always a holy grail of eugenicists.
The research, published today on SDB’s website, details the eugenic views of Francis Crick, after whom the Summit venue is named, which should have prevented the Medical Research Council from naming the Institute after him. What is equally disturbing is that the summit chair, Robin Lovell-Badge, who made himself central to scientists’ efforts to legalise HGM,(4) gave the Eugenics Society Galton Lecture(5) in 2017. An article in last week’s Nature magazine hoped genome editing could move on after the scandal of He Jiankui’s announcement of the creation of three GM babies in 2019. But there is an...
Related Articles
Several recent Biopolitical Times posts (1, 2, 3, 4) have called attention to the alarmingly rapid commercialization of “designer baby” technologies: polygenic embryo screening (especially its use to purportedly screen for traits like intelligence), in vitro gametogenesis (lab-made eggs and sperm), and heritable genome editing (also termed embryo editing or reproductive gene editing). Those three, together with artificial wombs, have been dubbed the “Gattaca stack” by Brian Armstrong, CEO of the cryptocurrency company...
Alice Wong, founder of the Disability Visibility Project, MacArthur Genius, liberationist, storyteller, writer, and friend of CGS, died on November 14. Alice shone a bright light on pervasive ableism in our society. She articulated how people with disabilities are limited not by an inability to do things but by systemic segregation and discrimination, the de-prioritization of accessibility, and the devaluation of their lives.
We at CGS learned so much from Alice about disability justice, which goes beyond rights...
By Adam Feuerstein, Stat | 11.20.2025
The Food and Drug Administration was more than likely correct to reject Biohaven Pharmaceuticals’ treatment for spinocerebellar ataxia, a rare and debilitating neurodegenerative disease. At the very least, the decision announced Tuesday night was not a surprise to anyone paying attention. Approval...
By Lucy Tu, The Guardian | 11.05.2025
Beth Schafer lay in a hospital bed, bracing for the birth of her son. The first contractions rippled through her body before she felt remotely ready. She knew, with a mother’s pit-of-the-stomach intuition, that her baby was not ready either...
