News

The quest to create gene-edited babies gets a reboot

By Rob Stein, NPR [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 08.06.2025

A Chinese scientist horrified the world in 2018 when he revealed he had secretly engineered the birth of the world's first gene-edited babies.

His work was reviled as reckless and unethical because, among other reasons, gene-editing was so new...

Genetic Selection

Baby Bonuses and Motherhood Medals: Why We Shouldn’t Trust the Pronatalist Movement

By Staff, National Women's Law Center | 08.13.2025

INTRODUCTION

Baby bonuses. Motherhood medals. Fertility tracking. You may have heard of these policy proposals as solutions from the Trump administration to help encourage women to have more children.

Besides falling short of ensuring that people have what they need...

Human Genetic Modification

We Don’t Know if the Babies Born From Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy Will Still Develop Mitochondrial Disease

By Katherine Drabiak, Journal of Medical Ethics Forum | 08.07.2025

Adapted from Mitochondrial DNA at
National Human Genome Research Institute

Recently, media outlets around the world have been reporting on...

Assisted Reproduction

Can doctors test embryos for autism? And should they?

By Brittany Luse, Liam McBain, and Neena Pathak, NPR [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 05.28.2025

A newly available kind of genetic testing, called polygenic embryo screening, promises to screen for conditions that can include cancer...

Genetic Selection

Francis Galton: The man who drew up the 'ugly map' of Britain

By Steve Jones, BBC News | 06.16.2011

Type the phrase "scientists find the gene for" into Google and 68,000 results appear. Most of the hits are about...

Bioethics

Google-backed 23andMe hits major milestone: 100,000 users in DNA database

By Peter Delevett, Mercury News | 06.15.2011

Mountain View genomics startup 23andMe just hit a milestone: As of Wednesday, 100,000 people have uploaded their genetic code to...

Bioethics

Suspects caught for illegal online human egg sales

By Kim So-hyun, The Korea Herald | 06.14.2011
The police on Tuesday sought arrest warrants for two people suspected of brokering illegal sales of human eggs and booked...
Bioethics

Is the Patent Office Forcing Race into Biotechnology Patents?

By Jonathan Kahn, Biopolitical Times guest contributor | 06.14.2011

A review of recent patent applications to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has uncovered a highly problematic...

Technologies

Could prenatal DNA testing open Pandora's box?

By Malcolm Ritter, The Associated Press | 06.12.2011
This is the second story in a two-part series on fetal DNA testing and the ethical issues raised by it...
Bioethics

Comfort or conflict: Earlier Down syndrome test

By Malcolm Ritter, San Francisco Chronicle | 06.11.2011

This is the first story in a two-part series on fetal DNA testing and the ethical issues raised by it...

Bioethics

Birthday Honours: Test-tube baby pioneer knighted

By BBC, BBC News | 06.10.2011

His work led to the birth of Louise Brown, the first "test-tube baby" in July 1978. The government's "heart tsar"...

Technologies

More Boys than Girls – A Growing Problem

By Dita Faulkner, EmpowHER | 06.09.2011
Now this is a unique problem. In some areas, there are more boys being born than girls. For instance, as...
Genetic Selection