This Week in Bioethics

by Matthew Eppinette, CBC Executive Director on October 20, 2017

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1. An Emotional Story, An Absurd Fate Jennifer this week published a closeup look at so-called spare, surplus, or leftover embryos. She begins with a recent embryo custody case in Arizona, and ends by quoting the Catholic encyclical Donum vitae. In between she covers a lot of ground. Well worth your time to read. It […]

An Absurd Fate: What Happens to Abandoned Embryos?

by Jennifer Lahl, CBC President on October 17, 2017

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I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: it almost always starts with an emotional story. The latest situation is an embryo custody battle in Arizona. It highlights the depth of real human emotions connected to having children and building a family, and the ways in which human lives are affected by a justice […]

This Week in Bioethics

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1. Egg “Donation” and Its Consequences We were contacted this week by Leah, a young woman who “donated” her eggs this summer. She found us as she researched how to deal with the complications she suffered, and continues to suffer, in the wake of her “donation”. Five days after her egg retrieval, her husband took […]

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Leah Used to be a Happy, Healthy Person. Then She “Donated” Her Eggs…

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It seems not a week goes by without hearing from someone who has been harmed by either egg “donation” or surrogacy. Today is no different. This morning I sat down at my desk and began reading a story from Leah who sold her eggs in June of this year for $7,000. I asked Leah how […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. SCOTUS Declines to Hear Surrogacy Case As far as I know, nothing we’ve posted on social media has ever gotten more reach or engagement that this news. It’s a case we have been involved in and followed from the very beginning. The Federalist’s coverage of the Supreme Court’s denial says it all. [I]f there were […]

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What is Brave New World Really About?

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I’m a huge science fiction fan, and I particularly like works of speculative and dystopian fiction. Some of my favorite, relatively recent books include Oryx and Crake, Snow Crash, and Anathem. Perhaps the most significant dystopian work, however, is Aldous Huxley’s 1932 Brave New World. Indeed, we here at the CBC sometimes use the phrase “Brave […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Update 1 on Melissa Cook’s Surrogacy Case Melissa Cook contacted Jennifer right before Thanksgiving last year with a plea for help. Jennifer vividly remembers the feeling of panic when speaking to Melissa by phone, begging her not to abort the babies she was carrying, telling her that she could NOT be forced to abort […]

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#StopSurrogacyNow: Dear Cristiano Ronaldo, A Woman Is Not A Factory

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Our friends at #StopSurrogacyNow have today posted a very powerful article by Kajsa Ekis Ekman, a Swedish journalist, writer, and activist. You may recall that I interviewed Kajsa in 2014 about her excellent book Being and Being Bought: Prostitution, Surrogacy and the Split Self. In this new article, Kajsa reveals surrogacy for what it is, namely, […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Our Big News This Week: A New Ebook Because of the work we do on third-party reproduction—egg donation, sperm donation, and surrogacy—we’re frequently contacted by those who have been affected by these practices. Kevin contacted us after he watched our film Anonymous Father’s Day (now available FREE on Amazon Prime). We asked him if […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Good News, Right Up Top! This appears to be a promising advancement in adult/non-embryonic stem cell research. Scientists in San Diego are developing a new method for working with the cells, using a process that is similar to the ways in which cells normally develop. The upshot is that this new technique “removes the […]

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#StopSurrogacyNow: New Book Announcement “Surrogacy: A Human Rights Violation”

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Our #StopSurrogacyNow campaign this week announced a new book by Dr. Renate Klein, an original signer of the #StopSurrogacyNow Statement and long-term women’s health researcher from Australia. She has written extensively on reproductive technologies and feminist theory over the last 30 years. Her book, Surrogacy: A Human Rights Violation, will be published in November 2017, […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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In spite of being a four-day, holiday week, this has been a busy one on the bioethics front. Here are five things that stood out this week. 1. #CyborgOlympics Brain Race The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ran a detailed item on the cyborg olympics’ brain race. It largely focuses on noninvasive brain-computer interfaces […]

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Here’s what we have planned!

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Dear Friend, Summer always seems to fly by, but we do our best to make the most of any summer lull. At CBC, we use the summer to catch up and plan out so we can hit the ground running right after Labor Day. As we look toward the fall and the end of 2017, […]

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Artificial Wombs: What’s Really Needed

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A recent article in Nature Communications announces the development of a kind of artificial womb (or extracorporeal gestational system). So far it has been used to further the development of premature lambs. Technology website Gizmodo breaks down the technical journal article in more understandable terms. The research team, led by Alan Flake from the Children’s […]

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Ethics and Embryo Editing

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In a world where it seems the news is endlessly dominated by events in and around the White House, one story this week has clearly broken through: U.S.-based researchers have succeeded in editing the genes in human embryos. This news was first reported by MIT Technology Review, but numerous other outlets — Associated Press, Scientific […]

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The Unethical Uneasiness with Human Gene Editing Technology

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It has just been announced that “the first known attempt at creating genetically modified human embryos” in the U.S. has been made. Through a new technique, often called CRISPR, germline modification can be made at the embryo stage—germline, meaning the genetically modified child would pass these changes onto future generations through his or her sperm […]

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In Case You Missed It

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Many bioethics stories cross our inboxes and screens each day. Some we write about here and in other venues, and others we simply blurb or write a short comment on via our social media outlets. Of course, not everyone is on social media or follows us there, so I thought I’d collect a few items […]

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Thank You!

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Jennifer and I want to say a very heartfelt thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU! to all who gave and to all who shared our “Help Us Tell Kelly’s Surrogacy Story” Kickstarter campaign! The campaign has now ended, and thanks to you it was more than 100% funded. We leave for South Dakota on Wednesday, and we […]

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