Reproductive Justice, Health & Rights
Advocates for reproductive health, rights, and justice are increasingly aware of the safety and social risks of assisted reproductive technologies and other human biotechnologies, particularly for women and children.
While assisted reproduction has helped many people create families, the long-term risks of these technologies – particularly those that require egg provision – are grossly understudied. In the U.S., assisted reproduction has developed almost entirely in the commercial sector and is notoriously underregulated.
Heritable genome editing, if allowed, would develop in this same commercial sector. Reproductive justice advocates draw attention to the risks to women and children’s health and wellbeing, the historical context of population control and reproductive oppression, and the likelihood that it would exacerbate reproductive, racial, and disability injustice.
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Photo from Belly of the Beast, used by permission
Yesterday, California became the third state in the nation to...
Published March 2, 2023
This two-part online CGS event centers social justice and human rights, presenting voices and perspectives from feminist, disability rights, reproductive rights and justice, racial justice, environmental, and human rights movements and scholars, who question whether heritable genome editing has any place in a fair and inclusive future. Day 2 of the symposium includes two panels: "Missing voices speak out," featuring Larkin Taylor Parker, Abril Saldaña, Dana Perls, and Nourbese Flint, and moderated by Emily Galpern; and "Genetic justice beyond the summit," featuring Isabelle Bartram, Maria Ní Flatharta, Milton Reynolds, and Katie Hasson.
This two-part online CGS event centers social justice and human rights, presenting voices and perspectives from feminist, disability rights, reproductive rights and justice, racial justice, environmental, and human rights movements and scholars, who question whether heritable genome editing has any place in a fair and inclusive future. Part one took place on February 27, 2023 and features CGS Executive Director Marcy Darnovsky discussing history and context of the Summit process, followed by Dorothy Roberts, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, George Annas and Silvia Yee (moderator) in conversation to discuss the social justice case against heritable genome editing.
Bill McKibben and john a. powell came discuss the “Climate Crisis, Designer Babies, and Our Common Future.” The event was moderated by Osagie K. Obasogie, Professor of Bioethics at UC Berkeley.
While embryo selection and gene editing technologies may offer great hope to couples looking to prevent hereditary disease or improve fertility. The debate over these technologies has reignited concerns that we are closer to slipping down the slope to designer babies than ever before. Are these fears warranted…or overblown?