Bioethics Forum Essay
Banning Abortion for Down Syndrome: Legal or Ethical Justification?
The Ohio legislature is expected to approve a bill this fall that would make it illegal for doctors to perform an abortion if the reason the woman wants a termination...Read “Banning Abortion for Down Syndrome: Legal or Ethical Justification?”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Reasonable Regulation of Surrogate Motherhood
This month France’s highest court granted legal recognition to children born to surrogates. Previously, surrogate children were deprived of any legal connection to their parents, or any civil status in...Bioethics Forum Essay
A Moratorium on Gene Editing?
An article in the New York Times last week suggests that the genetic engineering of humans is only just around the corner. A recently developed gene editing tool known as...Bioethics Forum Essay
Hobby Lobby Decision Likely to Increase Health Care Inequity
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al. v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., et al., could undermine a central goal of the Patient Protection and...Read “Hobby Lobby Decision Likely to Increase Health Care Inequity”
Bioethics Forum Essay
In Search of Sterility
In the November-December issue of the Hastings Center Report I wrote about voluntary sterilization for childfree women. The article came about through my inability to get sterilized as a childfree woman. I...Bioethics Forum Essay
“Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function” – Reason to Help, or Blame, the Poor?
“’The lower the caste,’ said Mr. Foster, ‘the shorter the oxygen.’ The first organ affected was the brain. After that the skeleton.” In Brave New World cognitive ability is carefully and intentionally...Read ““Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function” – Reason to Help, or Blame, the Poor?”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Are Canadian Fertility Services Breaking the Law?
In Canada, payment for eggs, sperm, in vitro embryos, and surrogacy is prohibited under the Assisted Human Reproduction Actof 2004. Offering or advertising such payments and brokering deals for eggs,...Bioethics Forum Essay
If We’re Going to Talk About My Reproductive Future . . .
When I tell people I’m going to medical school, it’s often not long until the conversation starts moving toward when and how I will have children. When I was 14...Read “If We’re Going to Talk About My Reproductive Future . . .”
Hastings Center News
In New Frankenstein Edition, Hastings Scholar Asks, What Do We Owe Our Creations?
What do scientists and engineers owe to their creations? What responsibility do they bear for harms that their creations cause? How does being responsible for our creations change us? These...Read “In New Frankenstein Edition, Hastings Scholar Asks, What Do We Owe Our Creations?”
Hastings Center News
Helping Transgender Adolescents Make Informed Decisions About Their Reproductive Care
Danielle 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...Read “Helping Transgender Adolescents Make Informed Decisions About Their Reproductive Care”
Hastings Center News
Genome Sequencing of Newborns: How Can It Be Done Responsibly?
This was one of the many big questions explored at Genomics and Society, a major conference last week on the ethical, legal, and social implications of genomic research. Several Hastings...Read “Genome Sequencing of Newborns: How Can It Be Done Responsibly?”
Bioethics Forum Essay
“The Handmaid’s Tale” and Modern-Day Surrogacy
With 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...Hastings Center News
Hastings Scholars in New England Journal of Medicine: Supporting Women’s Autonomy in Prenatal Testing
Noninvasive 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...Hastings Center News
Questions About Conscientious Objection in Health Care
In January the Department of Health and Human Services acted to increase enforcement of laws that permit doctors and other health care workers to refuse to provide services such as...Read “Questions About Conscientious Objection in Health Care”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Breastfeeding and Transgender Women
A transgender woman has successfully breastfed a baby. This case has been hailed as a “breakthrough” for transgender families. I will argue that being transgender is only peripherally relevant, and...Hastings Center News
Should We Pursue Genetic Cognitive Enhancement?
That was one of the many questions explored at a public event at the New York Academy of Sciences on May 21, cosponsored by The Hastings Center, the Aspen Brain...Bioethics Forum Essay
England’s Abortion Law Catches Up
Last month, England announced that it would allow women to take the second pill required for a medical abortion–misoprostol–at home, rather than requiring them to travel to a clinic. The...Bioethics Forum Essay
Wrongful Death Suits for Frozen Embryos: A Bad Idea
Last 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...Bioethics Forum Essay
He Jiankui’s Genetic Misadventure, Part 2: How Different Are Chinese and Western Bioethics?
When the world’s first research on editing the genes of human embryos by Chinese scientists was published in an international journal in 2015, a report in the New York Times...Read “He Jiankui’s Genetic Misadventure, Part 2: How Different Are Chinese and Western Bioethics?”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Moratorium on Human Genome Editing: Time to Get It Right
Last month, the journal Nature published a call for a global moratorium on heritable human genome editing. Despite criticism, notably from CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna, the moratorium is just what's needed now.Read “Moratorium on Human Genome Editing: Time to Get It Right”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Chinese Bioethicists: He Jiankui’s Crime is More than Illegal Medical Practice
Professionals and the public in China first learned of the jail sentence of He Jiankui from the report of Xinhua News Agency. No information, including any interpretation, was provided by the Court. But the reported words of the sentence are so ambiguous as to leave room for different interpretations. We believe that the public has the right to know more than Xinhua News Agency reported.Read “Chinese Bioethicists: He Jiankui’s Crime is More than Illegal Medical Practice”
Bioethics Forum Essay
What’s Wrong with Virginity Testing?
When the rapper T. I. disclosed on a podcast that he takes his 18-year-old daughter to a yearly gynecological examination to ensure that her hymen is still intact, the reaction of most people was condemnation. His obsession with her virginity is creepy, his subjecting her to an invasive procedure that has no medical value is controlling, and his willingness to talk about it publicly displays contempt for her rights to privacy and dignity. Some think that the law should prohibit physicians from performing or supervising virginity examinations. But the law is not the best means for dealing with the problem, and the problem is not simply virginity testing.Bioethics Forum Essay
Surprising Surge of Egg Freezing during the Pandemic Raises Ethical Questions
Contrary to the expectations of many fertility clinics, demand for egg freezing has increased sharply during the Covid-19 pandemic, highlighting longstanding ethical concerns about egg freezing clinics.Read “Surprising Surge of Egg Freezing during the Pandemic Raises Ethical Questions”
Bioethics Forum Essay
Bartering Your Eggs: A Rotten Deal
There is significant reproductive injustice and lack of access to fertility treatments by diverse populations. Nowhere is this more obvious than with egg freezing.Bioethics Forum Essay
Today’s Politics Threatens Tomorrow’s Reproductive Technologies
With a new technology called in vitro gametogenesis (IVG), scientists produced an egg from a male mouse, leading to two male mice having offspring. In mice. IVG could be a game changer for women and men dealing with infertility, women of advanced maternal age, and same-sex couples.Read “Today’s Politics Threatens Tomorrow’s Reproductive Technologies”
Hastings Center News
It Is Too Soon for Clinical Trials on Artificial Wombs: Scientific American Essay
“Artificial wombs are moving from the realm of science fiction to possible trials with severely premature babies,” write Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky and Louise P. King, a surgeon and...Read “It Is Too Soon for Clinical Trials on Artificial Wombs: Scientific American Essay”
Hastings Center News
The Ethics of IVF Embryos: Science, Choice, and Family
The latest conversation in The Big Question, a collaboration between The Hastings Center and the Museum of Science in Boston, features journalist and IVF patient Anna Louie Sussman. She sits...Read “The Ethics of IVF Embryos: Science, Choice, and Family”
