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

South Africa Does Not Allow Heritable Human Genome Editing 

By Pete Shanks | 11.24.2024
Biopolitical Times

Flag of South Africa; design by Frederick Brownell,
image by WikimediaCommons users.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

What is the legal status of heritable human genome editing (HHGE)? In 2020, a comprehensive policy analysis by Baylis, Darnovsky, Hasson, and Krahn documented that more than 70 countries and an international treaty prohibit it, and that no country explicitly permits it. Policies in some countries were non-existent, ambiguous, or subject to possible amendment, but the general rule remained, even after one...

Human Genetic Modification

Neoliberalism’s Love Affair with Innovation

By Emma McDonald Kennedy | 11.24.2024
Biopolitical Times

Gig work in childcare, nursing, and transportation; non-invasive prenatal testing; gene editing; and space expeditions can all be attributed to one mistaken, pervasive assumption: that “we can innovate our way out of the thorniest problems, including reproductive ones” (22). In Reproductive Labor and Innovation: Against the Tech Fix in an Era of Hype, feminist political theorist Jennifer Denbow demonstrates why the U.S. has put so much of its hopes, and its money, on technological “innovations”––and why that hasn’t addressed...

U.S. Federal

US startup charging couples to ‘screen embryos for IQ’

By Hannah Devlin, Tom Burgis, David Pegg, and Jason Wilson, The Guardian [cites CGS’ Katie Hasson] | 10.18.2024

Aggregated News

A US startup company is offering to help wealthy couples screen their embryos for IQ using controversial technology that raises...

Genetic Selection

South Africa amended its research guidelines to allow for heritable human genome editing

By Françoise Baylis and Katie Hasson, The Conversation | 10.24.2024

Aggregated News

A little-noticed change to South Africa’s national health research guidelines, published in May of this year, has put the...

Policies

Biopolitical Times

A Pronatalist Vision of Humanity’s Future

By Shrese | 01.07.2025

Photo by TeggorMindFish via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under
the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

A recent...

Genetic Selection

Some Notable 2024 Blog Posts

By CGS | 01.01.2025

Photo by BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash

Following an annual CGS tradition, we present a selection of our favorite Biopolitical Times posts...

Human Genetic Modification

Serving Two Masters:
Trump Team’s Tensions on Reproductive Politics

By Pete Shanks | 12.16.2024

Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

It is hard to make predictions, especially about the future, as Yogi Berra, Niels...

Assisted Reproduction

News

Reproductive Futures: The Promises and Pitfalls of In-Vitro Gametogenesis

By Sarojini Nadimpally and Gargi Mishra, The Wire | 12.15.2024

In-vitro fertilisation (IVF) as assisted reproductive technology (ART) has been in vogue for quite a few decades now. While IVF has been hailed as a significant scientific advancement, with many advantages, here are some limitations which bear keeping in mind...

Assisted Reproduction

For kids with rare genetic disorders, customized CRISPR treatments offer hope

By Rob Stein, NPR | 12.13.2024

 

Lucy Landman was born with a very rare genetic disorder that causes severe intellectual disability, weak muscles and seizures, among other symptoms.

"She is expected to very much never be able to live independently, likely never be potty trained...

Genomics

Law professor’s research sheds light on under-regulated fertility industry

By Michelle LePage, TorontoMet Today | 12.13.2024

As more people access fertility services in their journeys to becoming parents, Toronto Metropolitan University professor Katie Hammond says the Canadian fertility industry is in need of greater oversight.

A professor at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law, Hammond’s latest...

Other Countries

The Egg: A story of extraction, exploitation, and opportunity

By Natalie Obiko Pearson, Jessica Brice, Susan Berfield, Vernon Silver, Kanoko Matsuyama, Cindy Wang, Sinduja Rangarajan, Fani Nikiforaki, Bloomberg | 12.12.2024

A single cell.
A global business worth billions.
A trade that can bring rewards—or human costs that cannot be measured.
The human egg is a precious resource, exchanged in markets open, gray or black. To tell its story, we follow...

Other Countries

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