News

Surrogacy goes more mainstream

By Carly Mallenbaum, Axios [cites Emily Galpern] | 03.29.2026

More Americans are turning to surrogacy to build their families, as the practice becomes more common and more publicly discussed.

Why it matters: As surrogacy becomes more visible and accessible, ethical, legal and cultural tensions become harder to ignore...

U.S. Federal

Eugenics and the Modern Synthesis, Part I

By Jessica Riskin, Los Ángeles Review of Books | 03.23.2026

This is the first part of the 14th installment in the Legacies of Eugenics series, which features essays by leading thinkers devoted to exploring the history of eugenics and the ways it shapes our present. The series is organized by...

Civil Society

Surrogacy laws are all over the map

By Carly Mallenbaum, Axios [cites Surrogacy360] | 03.29.2026

Without a federal law, surrogacy in the U.S. is governed by a patchwork of state regulations/

Why it matters: Confusing...

Policies

Project Eugenics: The Rollback of Disability Rights

By Kiana Jackson and Shannon Stubblefield, New Disabled South | 02.09.2026

"MC0_8230" via Wikimedia Commons licensed under CC by 2.0 

This report documents a deliberate assault on disabled people in...

U.S. States
Photograph of an empty doctor's office.

Swelling, bleeding and even death – women who donate their eggs face many medical risks

By Priyanka Vora, Scroll.in | 06.20.2018

Last year, shortly after she had donated her eggs for the eighth time since 2009, Shabana Memon* resolved never to...

Assisted Reproduction
Lonely road stretching into the distance with the U.S. Mexico border wall flanking it.

Behind the Criminal Immigration Law: Eugenics and White Supremacy

By Ian MacDougall, ProPublica | 06.19.2018

Amid a bipartisan backlash, President Trump has tried repeatedly to shift blame to Democrats for his own administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration...

U.S. Federal
An Indian woman gazes into the distance and appears to be thinking.

‘No other way to earn money’: Why women from poor families become egg donors for infertile couples

By Priyanka Vora, Scroll.in | 06.19.2018

In March, Mumbai resident Shaheeda Khan*, 26, spent 20 days at a fertility clinic in Kerala, where doctors gave her...

Assisted Reproduction
Microscope image of H1N1 virus

Report For Defense Department Ranks Top Threats From 'Synthetic Biology'

By Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR | 06.19.2018

New genetic tools are making it easier and cheaper to engineer viruses and bacteria, and a report commissioned by the...

Synthetic Biology
A pregnant woman in a blue dress holds her stomach and gazes at the camera.

How IVF became a licence to print money

By Fay Schopen, The Guardian | 06.18.2018

I don’t consider myself to be lucky. I have never won the lottery, or even found a fiver in an...

Assisted Reproduction
A gloved hand inserts a pipette of clear liquid into a test tube.

Curious About Your Ancestry? Submit a DNA Swab, and a Big Grain of Salt

By Maud Newton, The New York Times | 06.18.2018

By now, millions of us have taken ancestry tests. We’ve spit into tubes and allowed our genetic information to be...

Technologies
Image of the Toronto skyline at sunset.

Couple takes legal action against Toronto fertility clinic over damaged eggs, embryos

By CTVNews.ca Staff, CTV News | 06.18.2018

An Ontario couple has filed notice of legal action against a Toronto fertility clinic after an alleged storage tank malfunction...

Assisted Reproduction
A computer generated animation of a cross-section of a human heart beating.

Scientists edit heart muscle gene in stem cells, may be able to predict risk

By Jacqueline Howard, CNN | 06.18.2018

In our human genome, there are many elusive genetic variants related to medical conditions, but the impact of these...

Genomics