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
Crime scene tape, gloves, and packages of evidence are stacked in a pile on a desk.

White House science advisers urge Justice Dept., judges to raise forensic standards

By Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post | 09.20.2016

Widely used methods to trace complex DNA samples, bullets, tread and bite marks to criminal defendants fall short of scientific...

Racial Justice
Patient's arm is injected.

Patients Turn To San Diego Stem Cell Companies For Costly, Unproven Treatments

By David Wagner, KPBS | 09.20.2016

Jim Gass made sure to record the moment in an iPhone video because he’d paid tens of thousands of dollars...

Stem Cells
Canadian flag flies against the winter air.

Why we need a law to prevent genetic discrimination

By Yvonne Bombard, Ronald Cohn & Stephen Scherer, The Globe and Mail [Canada] | 09.19.2016

Canada is close to catching up with other Western countries in protecting the most fundamental of information: our genetic code...

Reproductive Justice, Health & Rights
Darkened image of a pregnant woman's torso, showing only a side view of her stomach. She is holding the bottom of her stomach.

Why Some Of India's Surrogate Moms Are Full Of Regret

By Julie McCarthy, NPR | 09.18.2016

Isha Devi hails from Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, built by a grieving king for a beloved queen. Isha...

Bioethics
Illustrated picture of a patient inside of a doctor's office.

Everything you wanted to know about genetic engineering in one chirpy video

By Michael Cook, BioEdge [citing CGS' Elliot Hosman] | 09.16.2016

This chirpy video about genetic engineering explains the complex present and speculative future quite well although it probably takes too...

Synthetic Biology
Three wine glasses are pictured. One glass has a red liquid, another has a blue liquid. The final glass picture has a clear transparency, which displays the red and blue glasses through it.

US toughens rules for clinical-trial transparency

By Sara Reardon, Nature News | 09.16.2016

The disappointing results of clinical trials will no longer be able to languish unpublished, thanks to rules released on 16...

Bioethics
An individual sits, reading a newspaper/

‘Motherless babies!’ How to create a tabloid science headline in five easy steps

By Gretchen Vogel, Science Magazine | 09.14.2016

No, scientists have not figured out how to make “motherless babies,” nor have they gotten any closer to making an...

Synthetic Biology
Illustrated painting of the torso of a doctor in a white coat, holding their hand up as a gesture of silence or omniscient authority.

Peru Fails to Deliver for Indigenous Women

By Shena Cavallo, openDemocracy | 09.12.2016

Under Fujimori, thousands of indigenous women and men were sterilized against their will. Today, activists and organizations keep on fighting

...
Global Governance