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

The New Ethical Frontier: DIY Eugenics

By Michael Cook, MercatorNet | 05.21.2015
Untitled Document

The single most controversial development in biology in 2015 is a relatively cheap, easily manipulated technology for modifying...

Genetic Selection

Weighing The Promises Of Big Genomics

By David Dobbs, BuzzFeed | 05.21.2015
Untitled Document

“Success in sight: The eyes have it!” Thus the scientific journal Gene Therapy greeted the news, in 2008...

Bioethics

Do Most Women Who Get Fertility Treatments Take on Debt to Do It?

By Neil Shah, Wall Street Journal | 05.20.2015
Untitled Document

Americans are postponing parenting and using fertility treatments to get pregnant. So what’s the financial toll? A new...

Assisted Reproduction

Do We Really Need an Even Better Prenatal Test for Down Syndrome?

By Chris Kaposy, Impact Ethics | 05.19.2015
Untitled Document

The journal Clinical Proteomics recently published an article describing a new experimental prenatal test for Down syndrome that...

Bioethics

Does Biotech Need Limits?

By Azeen Ghorayshi, BuzzFeed News | 05.19.2015
Untitled Document

On Tuesday afternoon, roughly 135 scientists, bioethicists, philosophers, lawyers, and policymakers from 25 countries wrapped up the first-ever...

Bioethics

Innovation and Equity in an Age of Gene Editing

By Charis Thompson, Ruha Benjamin, Jessica Cussins and Marcy Darnovsky, The Guardian | 05.19.2015

The first day of BEINGS2015, “A Gathering of Global Thought Leaders to Reach Consensus on the Direction of Biotechnology...

Bioethics

National Academies Will Meet to Guide 'Gene Editing' Research

By Lisa M. Krieger, San Jose Mercury News | 05.18.2015
Untitled Document

The debate over human "gene editing" has moved onto the national stage with a prestigious institute announcing it...
Human Genetic Modification

Francis Collins on CRISPR: "Designer Babies Make Great Hollywood — And Bad Science"

By Julia Belluz, Vox | 05.18.2015

Two years ago, scientists quietly developed a technique known as CRISPR/Cas, which allowed them to edit DNA more cheaply, more...

Human Genetic Modification