News

Developments in gene-editing technology raise new ethical questions

By [cites CGS' Katie Hasson], KCBS Radio | 11.19.2025

This is Ask An Expert, where every weekday at 9:20am, KCBS Radio is giving you direct access to top experts in various fields. Today: Gene-editing technology allows scientists to work with DNA in unprecedented ways, but there are larger scientific...

U.S. Federal

Genetically Engineered Babies Are Banned. Tech Titans Are Trying to Make One Anyway.

By Emily Glazer, Katherine Long, Amy Dockser Marcus, The Wall Street Journal | 11.08.2025

For months, a small company in San Francisco has been pursuing a secretive project: the birth of a genetically engineered baby.

Backed by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his husband, along with Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong, the startup—called...

Genetic Selection

Who Gets to Procreate and Parent? A Black Feminist Critique of the Pronatalist Agenda

By Jallicia A. Jolly, Sydney Curtis and Nicole Sessions, Ms. Magazine | 10.17.2025

Pronatalism is an old idea with roots in eugenics and nationalism, that is now fashionable among far-right influencers and policymakers. They talk...

U.S. Federal

Does One Size Fit All?

By Jay S. Kaufman, Los Angeles Review of Books | 09.27.2025

This is the 10th installment in the Legacies of Eugenics series, which features essays by leading thinkers devoted to exploring...

Society

From sex selection to surrogates, American IVF clinics provide services outlawed elsewhere

By Ariana Eunjung Cha, The Washington Post | 12.31.2018

Danielle Lloyd, a former Miss Great Britain and celebrity mother of four boys, wants to guarantee that her next baby...

Assisted Reproduction
Mother and child holding each other and posing in the street.

Are fertility drugs safe? The industry says yes; critics worry they’re overprescribed.

By Ariana Eunjung Cha, The Washington Post | 12.27.2018

Logan Andreotta had been told she was an ideal candidate for in vitro fertilization. Though unable to get pregnant, the...

Assisted Reproduction
A pregnant woman holding her belly.

Surrogacy Should Be Regulated, but the New Bill Falls Short

By Deepa V., Sarojini Nadimpally and Oshin Siao Bhatt, The Wire | 12.20.2018

The news of the passing of the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill 2016 on Wednesday in the Lok Sabha prompts us to...

Policies
A group of Japanese 10 year olds sitting at there school desks.

Academic society to retract push for eugenic protection law 66 yrs after its proposal

By Norikazu Chiba, The Mainichi | 12.19.2018

TOKYO -- The Japanese Society for Hygiene, which was active in promoting eugenic policies under the now-defunct eugenic protection law...

Other Countries
United Nations logo in black.

WHO to Create Global Advisory Panel on Human Gene Editing

By Marcia Frellick, Medscape [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 12.18.2018

The World Health Organization (WHO) is creating a global panel to study human gene editing and the scientific, legal, social...

Genetic Selection
researches removes DNA from a test tube.

Editorial: California shouldn’t keep DNA from hundreds of thousands of innocent people

By Chronicle Editorial Board, San Francisco Chronicle [cites CGS' Marcy Darnovsky] | 12.14.2018

California is being sued over its DNA collection practices, and the only thing that’s surprising is how long it took...

U.S. States
Test tube pipette held in the hand of a scientist.

He Jiankui’s Genetic Misadventure, Part 2: How Different Are Chinese and Western Bioethics?

By Jing-Bao Nie, Neil Pickering, Hastings Bioethics Forum | 12.13.2018

When the world’s first research on editing the genes of human embryos by Chinese scientists  was published in an international...

Genomics
Pregnant woman holding her belly.

Scientists Say Gene-Edited Babies Claim Is 'Wake-Up Call' For World

By Rob Stein, NPR [Cites CGS' Marcy Darnovsky] | 12.13.2018

Three of the most influential scientific organizations in the world are calling for an urgent international effort to prevent scientists...

Genomics