Latest Big Question; strategic plan launch; involuntary adoption
Latest News
April 3, 2025
The Ethics of IVF Embryos: Science, Choice, and Family Watch the latest episode of The Big Question series.
The latest episode in The Big Question, a collaboration between The Hastings Center and the Museum of Science in Boston, features journalist and IVF patient Anna Louie Sussman. She sits down with Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky and Hastings Center Fellow Insoo Hyun of the Museum of Science to discuss how scientific innovation and personal experience converge at the crux of IVF and embryo ethics. Watch the episode.
The Hastings Center Vision: A Path Forward for Bioethics Join us for this special event in New York.
Please join us for the launch of our new strategic plan at our Daniel Callahan Annual Lecture, entitled “The Hastings Center Vision: A Path Forward for Bioethics,” with Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky; Joshua Boger, Founder and CEO (former) of Vertex Pharmaceuticals; and Gina Kolata, a New York Timeshealth and science reporter. April 24, Rockefeller University: reception from 4:30 – 5:30 p.m., program from 5:30 – 7:00 p.m. Reception and lecture are free, but registration is required. Learn more and register.
The Insult of Involuntary Adoption Article explores "little-known aspect of the post-Roe experience."
Adoption is often framed—as it was in the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision—as an alternative to abortion. But many women feel that pregnancy and birth made them a mother and that this new identity is not erased by the fact that they are not raising that child. In a recent article in the Hastings Center Report, Katie Watson, a Hastings Center Fellow at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, argues that involuntary adoption occurs when legislative coercion deprives a pregnant woman of a realistic abortion option, forcing them into the position of being a parent who is not parenting. Read the article.
In the Media Hastings experts and publications cited on dubious genetic research findings, IVF lawsuits, Terri Schiavo's legacy.
Undark: Senior research scholar Erik Parens discusses concerns about using genome studies to shed light on traits such as “educational attainment” that are highly influenced by social factors. “The overarching concern,” he says, is that findings would be used to argue “that the way our society is currently organized is simply a function of the genetic gifts that some people have and other people don’t.” Read the Undark article.
USA Today: A recent Hastings Bioethics Forum essay that marked the 20th anniversary of the death of Terri Schiavo is cited in an article about the ways in which this right-to-die case divided America and helped spark the culture wars that remain to this day. Read the USA Today article.
NBC News: Hastings Center research associate Danielle Pacia responds to findings that hundreds of lawsuits have been filed in the United States alleging that embryos were lost, destroyed, or swapped by fertility clinics or companies: “IVF is really mired in personhood and abortion debates in the United States in a way that just really complicates the discourse compared to places like the U.K.” Read the NBC News report.
Filling Out Forms for Life-Sustaining Treatment: Aids and Aggrevations, a virtual panel discussion with Hastings Center research scholar Virginia Brown, organized by the Columbia University Bioethics Program. April 10.
Tom Beauchamp Celebration of Life. Tom Beauchamp III, a towering figure in bioethics who was a Hastings Center Fellow, will be remembered and celebrated at this virtual event. April 11.
The Hastings Center Vision: A Path Forward for Bioethics, the launch of The Hastings Center's strategic plan at our Daniel Callahan Annual Lecture, with Vardit Ravitsky, Joshua Boger, and Gina Kolata. New York City, April 24.
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