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

IVF odds of success are decent; twin births still common

By Shari Roan, Los Angeles Times | 03.07.2011
IVF treatment continues to be a popular choice for making babies. The treatment, known formally as in vitro fertilization, is...
Genetic Selection

Reprogrammed Stem Cells Are Rife with Mutations

By Emily Singer, Technology Review | 03.03.2011

Adult cells that have been reprogrammed into stem cells harbor a number of genetic mutations, some of which appear in...

Stem Cells

U.S. Bioethics Panel to Review Clinical Trials Around the World

By Jocelyn Kaiser, ScienceInsider | 03.01.2011

Prompted by concerns about an unethical U.S.-sponsored study in the 1940s, bioethics advisers to President Barack Obama formed an international...

Human Rights

Gene Therapy Against HIV Not a Proven Cure, Experts Say

By Amanda Gardner, HealthDay News | 03.01.2011

TUESDAY, March 1 (HealthDay News) -- Experts are reacting with cautious optimism to the announcement Monday that researchers reconfigured immune...

Human Genetic Modification

Past medical testing on humans revealed

By Mike Stobbe, The Washington Post | 02.27.2011
Shocking as it may seem, U.S. government doctors once thought it was fine to experiment on disabled people and prison...
Media Coverage

Donor-Conceived and Out of the Closet

By Alessandra Rafferty, Newsweek | 02.25.2011
Toronto journalist Olivia Pratten is awaiting a landmark decision from a Canadian court on the disclosure of sperm donors’ records...
Civil Society

Courts 'will reject test secrecy'

By Paul Rincon, BBC News | 02.24.2011
Peter Gill told the BBC that UK courts would not accept forensic tests whose details are kept secret due to...
Genomics

Is DNA taken from arrestees constitutional?

By Nathan Gorenstein, Philadelphia Inquirer | 02.24.2011
A federal appeals court in Philadelphia will decide whether it is constitutional for the government to take DNA samples from...
Civil Society