The Center for Genetics and Society brings social justice and human rights to the center of public and policy discussions about human genetics and assisted reproduction.

Featured

Eugenics, from Victorian to Postmodern

By Pete Shanks | 09.24.2025
Biopolitical Times

Sir Francis Galton, 1890s, by Eveleen Myers (née Tennant)
npg.org
Public Domain via Wikipedia

As has been discussed in recent issues of Biopolitical Times (1, 2), there are, increasingly, companies that claim to be selling parents better babies by selecting the “best” embryos. These services don’t come cheap – think $50,000, or even more, for embryo testing, plus perhaps as much again for IVF and concomitant services. To most of us, that is extremely expensive...

Policies

Can Trump’s IVF Policies Please His Pronatalist Base?

By Emma McDonald Kennedy | 09.25.2025
Biopolitical Times

In the leadup to the 2024 election, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to make IVF more accessible. He made the commitment central to his campaign, even referring to himself as the “father of IVF.” In his first month in office, Trump issued an executive order promising to expand IVF access. The order set a 90-day deadline for policy recommendations for “lowering costs and reducing barriers to IVF,” although it didn’t make any substantive reproductive healthcare policy changes.

The response to the...

Policies

A New Eugenics Gold Rush? From designer babies to not-quite-designer jeans

By Katie Hasson | 08.21.2025
Biopolitical Times

If you’ve been online or caught the news in the past few weeks, you’ve probably come across Sydney Sweeney, her...

Human Genetic Modification

The quest to create gene-edited babies gets a reboot

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

Aggregated News

A Chinese scientist horrified the world in 2018 when he revealed he had secretly engineered the birth of the world's...

Genetic Selection

Biopolitical Times

Can Trump’s IVF Policies Please His Pronatalist Base?

By Emma McDonald Kennedy | 09.25.2025

In the leadup to the 2024 election, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to make IVF more accessible. He made the commitment...

Policies

Chimeras: The Genetic Modification of Nature

By Pete Shanks | 09.25.2025

GeneWatch UK has prepared a briefing on the genetic modification of nature for the International Union for Conservation of Nature...

Animal Biotechnologies

Eugenics, from Victorian to Postmodern

By Pete Shanks | 09.24.2025

Sir Francis Galton, 1890s, by Eveleen Myers (née Tennant)
npg.org
Public Domain via Wikipedia

As has been discussed in recent...

Policies

News

The REPAIRome: A catalog of DNA scars sheds light on a path to fighting cancer resistance

By Jessica Mouzo, El País | 10.03.2025

DNA is the molecule of life: this double-helix structure, present in every cell in the body and organized into fragments called genes, stores the instructions for making organisms function. It is a highly precise biological machine, but sometimes it breaks...

Genomics

Fertility treatments impacted by donor limit mix-up can proceed under NSW Health exemption

By Paige Cockburn, ABC News | 10.02.2025

On Thursday afternoon, NSW Health announced a temporary exemption to the donor limit would come into effect in mid to late October to allow those affected to continue their treatments.

"Recognising the significant emotional, physical and financial impacts the misinterpretation...

Society

The New Eugenics: Biohacking, Fertility Startups, and the Future of Choice

By Daniel Hildebrand, The Humanist | 10.01.2025

When most people hear the word eugenics, they think of dusty history textbooks and black-and-white photographs: forced sterilizations in the early 20th century, pseudoscientific charts measuring skulls, the language of “fitness” used to justify violence and exclusion. It feels like...

Genetic Selection

Scientists create human eggs in the lab, using skin cells

By Rob Stein, NPR | 09.30.2025

Scientists have created human eggs containing genes from adult skin cells, a step that someday could help women who are infertile or gay couples have babies with their own genes but would also raise difficult ethical, social and legal issues...

Assisted Reproduction

Video
Reproduction and Family Formation: The State and the Market
Use Gene Editing to Make Better Babies | Debate | Intelligence Squared U.S.
The 'Perfect' Baby?: The Dangers of Gene Editing in Assisted Reproduction