IVF

Human Experimentation Without Consent Is Basis of a Growth Industry

That we would allow humans to be experimented on without their knowledge or consent sounds like something out of the past. But in the world of assisted reproduction, more commonly called in vitro fertilization (IVF), it happens by the tens of thousands each day, all around the world, to human embryos. Allow me to explain. IVF is […]

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My Journey With Infertility

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Today Jennifer brings her dear friend, Karen Hoffman, on Venus Rising to talk about her very personal journey with infertility. Karen has an international background, having lived and worked on three continents. She was born and raised in South Africa, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree University of Pretoria. Subsequently, Karen moved to London, where […]

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Egg Harvesting, Gene Editing, and Artificial Wombs

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New Venus Rising Episode with Wesley J. Smith Join us for a brand new episode of Venus Rising as Jennifer Lahl has the privilege to sit down with lawyer and award-winning author, Wesley J. Smith, to discuss egg harvesting, gene-editing, artificial wombs and more! Wesley Smith has authored or co-authored 14 books and hundreds of articles or opinion […]

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Women As Guinea Pigs in Biotechnical Research

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From remarks delivered at the Heritage Foundation’s recent panel, “Bioethics: What It Is and Why It Matters“ In 1985, just seven years after the birth of Louise Brown (1978), the world’s first ‘test tube’ baby, Gena Corea published her very important book titled, The Mother Machine: Reproductive Technologies from Artificial Insemination to Artificial Wombs. In […]

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This Week in Bioethics #114

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1. New Jersey Legalizes Commercial Gestational Surrogacy Sadly, NJ Gov. Murphy has signed into law S482, which authorizes gestational carrier agreements. We’ve been following this bill closely for several months. We know that many, many people worked tirelessly to oppose the bill and to encourage Gov. Murphy to veto it. This is a major disappointment. […]

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Study Finds Surrogate Pregnancies are Different

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You know how a good song brings back old memories? Well, recently I found myself reading a research article published in Fertility and Sterility—or Fert and Stert, as I lovingly call it—and it brought back old memories of days when I was a young research assistant still trying to find my place in the world. […]

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An Absurd Fate: What Happens to Abandoned Embryos?

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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 […]

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Baby Markets: Financial Market Expert Weighs In

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I recently interviewed David Bahnsen, a highly regarded, California-based investment manager and expert in financial markets about his views on markets and children. Jennifer Lahl: I live in the back yard of the Silicon Valley, where, stealing from my colleague Dr. Bill Hurlbut at Stanford, we like to say, “We have a front seat on the […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Priorities at the VA The department of veterans affairs this week released the preliminary results of a new study on suicide among veterans. “In 2014, the latest year available, more than 7,400 veterans took their own lives, accounting for 18 percent of all suicides in America. Veterans make up less than 9 percent of […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1.  Can You Imagine That Anonymous Sperm and Egg “Donation” are a Problem? CBS’s Sunday Morning program this week ran an item on “The Flourishing Business of Building Family Trees,” highlighting widespread interest in genealogy and the businesses that are helping people in their searches. The report is bookended by the moving story of 55 […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Surrogacy Bill Becomes Law in Louisiana Louisiana Governor Edwards has signed into law a bill that makes surrogacy contracts enforceable in his state. Former Louisiana Governor Jindal vetoed similar legislation in 2013 and 2014, and we were hopeful that the new governor and his staff would also be attentive to the strong arguments against […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Surrogate Custody Battle Moves Forward Melissa Cook, whose story we broke, is moving forward with her custody battle for the triplets she carried as a gestational surrogate for a single man. Melissa’s case brought international attention after the intended father demanded she abort one of the babies because he was worried about the realities […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Euthanasia Expansion If you need any evidence that the arguments in support of euthanasia or assisted-suicide are specious, read this story. A young woman in the Netherlands chose euthanasia by lethal injection. What was her terminal illness? She didn’t have one. Did she have less than six months to live? There is no evidence […]

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Wounded Vets Don’t Need Taxpayer Funded IVF

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I’ll be in DC next week for a bunch of meetings, mostly speaking with people about a bill that provides $3.4 billion in additional care for vets. I am involved because the bill currently includes an amendment to provide IVF benefits to wounded vets. These sorts of policy battles always start out with a rough […]

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The Cold Chain of Precious Cargo

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Wired has just published a close look at the global cold chain of eggs, sperm, and embryos headed to the latest destination where paid surrogacy is legal: “Inside the Hidden Global Supply Chain for Frozen Sperm, Eggs, and Embryos.” Typically, a cold chain is the transportation of things that have a limited shelf-life. Think food […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Physician Assisted Suicide Pills Made Cheaper Who doesn’t love a sale?! A new cocktail of drugs has been devised to make physician assisted suicide even cheaper in Washington State. Whereas the previous prescription would cost somewhere between $2,000-$5,000, the new mix is now priced at $500—a real steal! It’s no wonder why governments around […]

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Everybody Loves a Sale

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In our documentary film Breeders?, one of the fertility doctors commenting on the high likelihood of twins in surrogate pregnancies joked that everybody loves a sale—her way of downplaying the fact that many intended parents seeking one child via surrogacy end up with two (or more). Now, in the United Kingdom, a fertility clinic is […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. IVF Conceived Children Face Poor Health Outcomes A new study in the journal of Human Reproduction warns that IVF conceived children may suffer poor health outcomes such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity. According to Dr. Pascal Gagneux, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California San Diego, “We’re engaging in an evolutionary […]

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