- Hastings Center News
Watch the Livestream Tonight: Ethics of Technology Keynote Lecture by Hastings Center’s Josephine Johnston
Read the PostHastings Center NewsThe Hastings Center’s director of research Josephine Johnston will explore how parental responsibilities are challenged by new genetic technologies in the keynote address of the “Ethics of Technology,” a yearlong lecture series at Washington & Lee University that begins on September 26.Read the Post - Hastings Center News
Does Genetic Testing Pose Psychosocial Risks?
Read the PostHastings Center NewsFor the last quarter century, researchers have been asking whether genetic information might have negative psychosocial effects. Anxiety, depression, disrupted relationships, and heightened stigmatization have all been posited as possible outcomes—but not consistently found. What accounts for the ...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
What’s Wrong with a Fertility Doctor Using His Own Sperm?
Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Moratorium on Human Genome Editing: Time to Get It Right
Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Chinese Bioethicists Respond to the Case of He Jiankui
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayA preliminary investigation by Guangdong Province in China of He Jiankui, the scientist who created the world’s first gene-edited babies, found that “He had intentionally dodged supervision, raised funds and organized researchers on his own to carry out the human embryo gene-editing intended for ...Read the Post - Hastings Center News
The Hastings Center Celebrates Outstanding Journalists
Read the PostHastings Center NewsThree journalists received The Hastings Center Awards for Excellence in Journalism on Ethics and Reprogenetics. The awards were presented at an event in New York City on December 6 that celebrated the role of journalists in helping the public understand the science of heredity and the power of geneti...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
He Jiankui: A Sorry Tale of High-Stakes Science
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayIn response to news of the world’s first babies born in China from gene-edited embryos, Sam Sternberg, a CRISPR/Cas9 researcher at Columbia University, spoke for many when he said “I’ve long suspected that scientists, somewhere, would rush to claim the ‘prize’ of being first to apply CRISPR...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
He Jiankui’s Genetic Misadventure: Why Him? Why China?
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayThe birth of gene-edited twin girls was announced by a young Chinese scientist He Jiankui through one of four self-made promotional videos in English on YouTube (a website officially banned in China) on November 25. Three days later, at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing held in ...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Should We Edit the Human Germline? Is Consensus Possible or Even Desirable?
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayI started writing this on my way back to New York from the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing, held in Hong Kong November 27 to 29, where the breaking news of the alleged world’s first birth of genetically edited babies loomed large. The surprising news both reinforced and undercut...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Wrongful Death Suits for Frozen Embryos: A Bad Idea
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayLast March, 4,000 frozen eggs and embryos were lost at University Hospitals Fertility Center in Cleveland when the temperature in cryogenic tanks spiked due to human error. Officials at University Hospitals have apologized repeatedly to the affected patients, and say that they are working to provide ...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Lena Dunham’s Lesson for Doctors
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayIn a recent essay in Vogue the actress, writer, and director Lena Dunham described her decision to have a hysterectomy at age 31 after a decade of unsuccessful attempts to control increasingly excruciating pain from endometriosis. The decision was difficult because it meant that she would never be ab...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Reproductive Freedom: The More Things Change . . .
Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Breastfeeding and Transgender Women
Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Vive la Bioéthique? France’s Bioethics Initiative
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayLittle noticed in the United States but a big deal in France, President Emmanuel Macron announced in January that he is creating a bioethics commission to review the country’s policies on a wide range of subjects, including human reproduction, euthanasia, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. ...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Is Noninvasive Prenatal Genetic Testing Eugenic?
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayBefore noninvasive prenatal screening becomes a routine part of gestational care, society needs to have difficult conversations about the ethical implications and establish a paradigm for truly informed consent in reproductive decision-making. These are admirable goals, set out in an article by Vardi...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Cancer and Fertility: Learning from Survivors
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayAs modern medicine improves survival odds, many young cancer patients are living long lives that bear the markings of the disease and its treatment. The side effects of chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery often include damage to fertility, such as early menopause or the loss of viable sperm. A recen...Read the Post - Hastings Center News
Hastings Scholars in New England Journal of Medicine: Supporting Women’s Autonomy in Prenatal Testing
Read the PostHastings Center NewsNoninvasive fetal genetic sequencing done early in pregnancy is poised to become a routine part of prenatal care. While it could offer patients substantial benefits, there is a risk that it will be integrated into care “without the robust, evidence-based informed consent process necessary for respe...Read the Post - Hastings Center News
Choosing Flourishing: Erik Parens Calls for Fresh Thinking on Disability
Read the PostHastings Center NewsDisability advocates and bioethicists have long debated whether it is appropriate for individuals, particularly prospective parents engaged in reproductive decision-making, to “choose disability,” as in the case of a deaf couple who would like to have a deaf child. In the current issue of the Ken...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
“The Handmaid’s Tale” and Modern-Day Surrogacy
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayWith the wild popularity of the new TV series The Handmaid’s Tale, surrogacy is back in the limelight. The Hulu show, based on the cautionary novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood, follows Offred, a woman who is isolated and confined for the sole purpose of bearing children for the people who ...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Should We Stop Having Children?
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayNot long ago, I received a questionnaire from an organization on a crusade to lower birthrates to protect the health and well-being of people and the environment. Called the Population Connection, it is the successor to ZPG (Zero Population Growth), started in the 1970s by Paul Ehrlich. Shortly there...Read the Post - Hastings Center News
Genome Sequencing of Newborns: How Can It Be Done Responsibly?
Read the Post - Hastings Center News
Helping Transgender Adolescents Make Informed Decisions About Their Reproductive Care
Read the PostHastings Center NewsDanielle is a 15-year-old transgender female who is about to begin hormone therapy. Her parents would like her to explore gamete cryopreservation – sperm freezing – as a means of preserving her fertility, which could be impaired by the hormone treatments. Danielle would prefer not to, remarking, ...Read the Post - Hastings Center News
Association of Health Care Journalists Meeting Features Hastings Center Experts
Read the PostHastings Center NewsThe Hastings Center teamed up with the Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) to create three sessions on gene editing for its annual meeting in Orlando on April 20. In addition, Hastings Center research scholar Nancy Berlinger was a panelist on a session concerning health care for refugees an...Read the Post - Hastings Center News
The Ethics of Making Babies
Read the PostHastings Center NewsOn April 6-7, The Hastings Center co-sponsored “The Ethics of ‘Making Babies,’” Harvard Medical School’s Annual Bioethics Conference, which explored the ethical and legal issues raised by assisted reproductive technologies. Josephine Johnston, director of research and a research scholar a...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Preventing Sex-Selective Abortions in America: A Solution in Search of a Problem
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayArkansas has recently joined seven other states (Arizona, Kansas, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota) in banning abortions for sex selection. Arizona’s law requires doctors to ask a woman seeking an abortion if she knows the sex of the fetus, and if she does,...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
After the Election Bioethics Faces a Rocky Road
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayAcademic bioethics has never been popular with Republicans. Libertarians dislike academic bioethics because it seems too elitist and anti-free market. Religious thinkers worry it is technocratic, soulless and crassly utilitarian. Now with Trumpism add a populist disdain for expertise, experts and t...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Questions About Using “Mosaic” Embryos in IVF
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayCouples undergoing IVF routinely undergo preimplantation genetic screening, or PGS, to make sure that their embryos are viable and free of genetic disease. However, some embryos have both normal and abnormal cells, and at least some of these “mosaic” embryos are capable of developing into healthy...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Children at all Costs?
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayIn the past few weeks, the North American media has been rife with stories about unusual births following fertility treatment. The first was that of Nadya Suleman (christened by the media as Octo-Mom, or Madame Ovary) – a California woman who recently gave birth to octuplets. This case raised a num...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Selective Parenting
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayFor years, the abortion of fetuses likely to have disabilities has been called “selective abortion,” but, for reasons made clear in Hilde Lindemann’s thoughtful Bioethics Forumreflection on the matter, the practice might better be called “selective parenting.” It fundamentally reflects, aft...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Liberty Should Win: We May Choose Our Children’s Sexual Orientation
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayGay marriage is morally unacceptable – here’s why: Supporters of gay marriage undermine the rights of homosexuals because they provoke increased homophobic reactions and political mobilization in an already homophobic society. Sure, gay marriages in themselves harm no one and homophobic reacti...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Liberty and Solidarity: May We Choose Children for Sexual Orientation?
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayIn a just-published New York Magazine piece, “The Science of Gaydar,” writer David France looks at the growing scientific evidence for innate differences between gay and straight people. France ends by gazing towards the future, and asks the question, “What if prenatal tests were able to show a...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
The Perils of Embryo Banking?
Read the Post