News

'Superbabies' Startup Seeks Funds for Controversial Gene Editing Push

By Sophie Alexander and Ike Swetlitz, Bloomberg | 06.25.2025

A California-startup focused on genetically editing human embryos — a step toward creating so-called designer babies — is raising money as many of Silicon Valley’s ultra-rich turn their attention to one of the most controversial technologies in medicine.

Bootstrap Bio...

Patents & Other IP

Can doctors test embryos for autism? And should they?

By Brittany Luse, Liam McBain, and Neena Pathak, NPR [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 05.28.2025

A newly available kind of genetic testing, called polygenic embryo screening, promises to screen for conditions that can include cancer, obesity, autism, bipolar disorder, even celiac disease. These conditions are informed by many genetic variants and environmental factors - so...

Genetic Selection

Why Deleting Your 23andMe Data Is a Political Imperative

By Katie Sagaser, The DNA Exchange | 05.27.2025

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this piece are solely my own and do not represent those of my...

U.S. Federal

Trumpian “Common Sense” and the History of IQ Tests

By Pepper Stetler, Los Angeles Review of Books | 05.08.2025

"Donald Trump Signs The Pledge" by Michael Vadon 
is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

This is...

Society
A photograph of Judith Heumann, as a panelist, ready to speak

A New Eugenics Wave: Trying to Make Disability and Disease Disappear

By Elayne Clift, Daily Kos | 05.01.2025

Photo of Judy Heumann by Taylordw, 
CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Back in the 1980s when I...

Society
sickle cell graphic

Could gene therapy improve my life as an adult with sickle cell?

By Oluwatosin Adesoye, Sickle Cell Disease News | 04.30.2025

Several weeks ago, when news of the first sickle cell disease patient to be cured by gene therapy went viral...

Biotech & Pharma
graphic with three babies

How MAGA's obsession with ‘pronatalism’ is harmful to the LGBTQ+ community

By Ariel Messman-Rucker, Pride | 04.30.2025

Family values conservatives have been obsessed with heterosexual marriages and babies for decades. They have fought to curtail women’s rights...

Society
Flag of Spain

Spain bans its embassies from registering babies born through surrogacy

By Aitor Hernandez-Morales, Politico | 04.30.2025

Flag of Spain, public domain via wikimedia commons

The Spanish government is banning its embassies and consulates from registering children...

Policies
eugenics illustration

Will Utah Compensate Victims of Forced Sterilization?

By Jonathan Michels, Jacobin | 04.29.2025

In 2018, Dr James Tabery watched a documentary about North Carolina’s eugenics program and the fraught effort to financially compensate...

Society
A gene therapy cartoon

Genetic medicine can leave people with rare mutations behind. But there’s new hope

By Laura Ungar, Associated Press | 04.26.2025

Emily Kramer-Golinkoff can’t get enough oxygen with each breath. Advanced cystic fibrosis makes even simple things like walking or showering...

Human Genetic Modification
Simone and Malcolm Collins with children

They say they want Americans to have more babies. What’s beneath the surface?

By Lisa Hagen, NPR | 04.25.2025

The Collins Family, by TeggorMindFish, CC 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

“Humanity is dying,” billionaire Elon Musk told Fox News anchor...

U.S. Federal
eugenics graphic

Let’s have more babies — and less of this

By Philip Bump, The Washington Post | 04.24.2025

My wife and I decided to have children for an entirely prosaic reason: We wanted to start a family. I’m...

Bioethics