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Huge thanks––and a MATCHING challenge!
Your generosity made this Giving Tuesday a big success. We are 43% of the way toward our goal of raising $18,500 by the end of the year.
Your gift helps promote social justice in the high-stakes policy debates about human genetics. Give now, before the end of December, and your contribution will be doubled by a generous longtime donor. You can make a difference in the fight for genetic justice today!
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Hipster Eugenics: Better Babies for Billionaires
Pete Shanks, Biopolitical Times | 11.30.2022
“Hipster eugenics” brutally sums up the pronatalist, techno-utopian credo combining transhumanism, longtermism and effective altruism. It’s a toxic view in which embryo selection––and potentially heritable genome editing––are transformative, socially responsible technologies.
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GENE EDITING | GENOMICS | ASSISTED REPRODUCTION
EUGENICS | SURROGACY360 | VARIOUS
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A Promising Trial Targets a Genetic Risk for Alzheimer’s
Gina Kolata, The New York Times | 12.05.2022
A new gene therapy trial will test whether injecting a protective gene into the brains of patients that have a particular genetic risk for Alzheimer’s can help reduce the likelihood of developing the disease.
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GATTACA is still pertinent 25 years later
Dov Greenbaum and Mark Gerstein, Nature | 11.24.2022
The film GATTACA envisioned a dystopian future in which social inequalities were reinscribed via genetic determinism. 25 years after the film’s release, its prescient forewarnings remain relevant given the current trajectory of genomic science and technology.
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When the NYPD Gets Desperate
Amos Barshad, The Nation | 11.28.2022
In a high-profile murder case, New York police swabbed hundreds of Black men. Then they illegally used a private DNA lab, relied on the scientifically contested practice of DNA phenotyping to implicate a suspect, and concealed their tactics.
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The Realities of Race in Assisted Reproduction
Melissa Harris-Perry, WNYC Studios | 11.17.2022
Discussing the experiences of Black people undergoing IVF and donating sperm, Camisha Russell explains, “assisted reproductive technologies are about making families and creating families. That, in the US, has always been so highly racialized.”
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Why the Idea of a ‘Normal’ Body Is So Insidious
Heather Radke, TIME | 11.26.2022
Eugenicists after World War II pursued the project of eradicating “insufficiently white,” disabled, and queer people by engineering a false idea of the “normal” body. This pernicious norm continues to operate in healthcare and biotechnology today.
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Can Super Babies Save the World?
Julia Black, Insider | 11.17.2022
Pronatalist couples like Malcolm and Simone Collins are using genetic testing to select what they believe are “superior” embryos––a twisted variant on eugenic thinking.
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They Were Surrogates. Now They Must Raise the Children.
Hannah Beech, The New York Times | 11.26.2022
In 2018, 30 Cambodian surrogates were convicted of human trafficking, served time in prison, and gave birth while imprisoned––some chained to their beds. In exchange for suspended sentences, they are being required to raise the children themselves.
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San Francisco bars police from using killer robots, reversing recent vote
Niha Masih, The Washington Post | 12.07.2022
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved police use of remote-controlled robots to kill in a limited number of situations. Public outcry over the militarization of police ensued, and the Board quickly reversed their decision, banning the practice.
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Inside the billion-dollar meeting for the mega-rich who want to live forever
Jessica Hamzelou, MIT Technology Review | 11.16.2022
The ultra-wealthy want life-extending technologies. Their desires––and investment––have drawn biotech startups and entrepreneurs to the industry. Supplements and new technologies are advertised––without scientific evidence––as the key to attaining the new luxury good: longevity.
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