Author Archive for Jennifer Lahl

Bioethics 2016: Winners and Losers
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Bioethics 2016: Winners and Losers

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by on Jan 13, 2017 in Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide, Featured, Reproductive Technology
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Each year at this time we look back over the past twelve months with an eye toward identifying those whose lives and work actively promoted and affirmed a truly human future, and those who did not. Winners: Stephanie Packer is more than a winner; she really is a hero. Sitting down with her while making […]

Wounded Vets Don’t Need Taxpayer Funded IVF
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Wounded Vets Don’t Need Taxpayer Funded IVF

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by on May 16, 2016 in Featured, Reproductive Technology
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I’ll be in DC this 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 […]

The Great Unaddressed Human Rights Issue of Our Day
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The Great Unaddressed Human Rights Issue of Our Day

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by on Apr 07, 2016 in Featured, Reproductive Technology
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Moments after speaking before a sea of families in Rome about the dangers of commercial surrogacy, an Italian reporter asked why I was being so vocal in a country where it is already illegal. Isn’t that like preaching to the choir, she wondered? While the notion of speaking to hundreds of thousands of people who […]

The Birds and the Bees and Children’s Literature
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The Birds and the Bees and Children’s Literature

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by on Aug 19, 2015 in Featured, On Books, Reproductive Technology
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When my children were younger we spent a lot of time at our local public library. We went to the weekly story time and the annual fairs, joined the summer reading programs to win prizes for books read, and spent a lot of time sitting on rugs and tiny chairs reading, reading, and reading. It’s […]

The Human Body and the Death of Normalcy?
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The Human Body and the Death of Normalcy?

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by on Aug 07, 2015 in Featured, On TV and Movies, Transhumanism
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Regan Brashear has done us all a favor by directing and producing the documentary film Fixed: The Science/Fiction of Human Enhancement. Fixed, a New Day Digital film, was released in 2013, and I’m happy to have heard about it and to have been given a chance to watch it. I confess, on watching the trailer, […]

The Playgrounds of War I
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About an Unwanted Boy

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by on Jun 29, 2015 in Featured, Reproductive Technology, Those in Need
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I’ve just watched an in depth report about a baby boy born via surrogacy in India on November 12, 2012, and left behind by his Australian parents. This tragic story highlights the dirty side of buying and selling and trafficking in children, the complicity of government officials, and the corrupt $500 million per year surrogacy […]

When Child Custody Battles Move to the Lab
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When Child Custody Battles Move to the Lab

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by on Apr 30, 2015 in Featured, Parenting, Reproductive Technology
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I have to confess, I hadn’t heard of Sofia Vergara or her ex-fiance, Nick Loeb, until the frozen embryo custody battle broke in the news. For those, like me, who aren’t familiar with these two, Vergara is an actress, mostly known for her role in the TV show Modern Family, and Loeb is a businessman […]

<em>Still Alice</em>: Life in the Wake of a Devastating Diagnosis
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Still Alice: Life in the Wake of a Devastating Diagnosis

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by on Feb 18, 2015 in Disability, Sickness & Suffering, Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide, Featured, On TV and Movies
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“I am not suffering; I am struggling.” These words are part of a beautiful speech delivered by Julianne Moore in her Oscar-nominated performance as Dr. Alice Howland in the film Still Alice. The film is a powerful testimony of how a woman who has made her career out of words loses her words because of […]

Sex, Lies and Birth Certificates
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Sex, Lies and Birth Certificates

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by on Jan 14, 2015 in Featured, Reproductive Technology
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Recently in my state of California, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that, beginning in 2016, will alter birth certificates in a dramatic way. Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles) authored Assembly Bill 1951, which amends the California Vital Records Birth Certificate law in order to “modernize” California birth certificates by allowing each parent to self-identify as mother, father, […]

U.S. Borders Open Wide and Encourage Reproductive Tourism
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U.S. Borders Open Wide and Encourage Reproductive Tourism

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by on Oct 30, 2014 in Featured, Reproductive Technology, Travel
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Last night before heading off to bed I happened to check my email, only to read this unbelievable headline – “Obama Administration Allows Fertility Clinics To Sell US Citizenship.” Boy, did that catch my eye! I’ve just finished reading the Policy Alert issued by the Department of Homeland Security. You can read it here but […]

A Bad Week of Press for Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART)
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A Bad Week of Press for Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART)

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by on Jul 03, 2014 in Featured, Reproductive Technology
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If you are like me (you probably aren’t) and have your google alerts set for “egg donation,” “sperm donation,” and “surrogacy,” you will have seen that it was a bad press week for the field of reproductive medicine. Here are several stories that caught my eye. Risks to Mother and Child The Daily Mail reports […]

Message to Governor Bobby Jindal: Women are Mothers Not Breeders
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Message to Governor Bobby Jindal: Women are Mothers Not Breeders

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by on May 30, 2014 in Featured, Reproductive Technology
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On April 1 the Louisiana House passed H.B. 187, a gestational surrogacy bill that would provide a legal framework for women to enter into a contract in order to carry, deliver, and surrender a child at birth to an infertile couple. The bill has now passed the Senate and is headed to Governor Bobby Jindal’s […]

Pregnancy, Why Bother?
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Pregnancy, Why Bother?

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by on Apr 22, 2014 in Featured, Reproductive Technology
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There are those hushed, polite conversations when people wondered why Tag Romney and his wife, who already had three children naturally, chose to have three more children via gestational surrogacy.  The celebrity surrogate pregnancy stories always raise more eyebrows.  Why did Sarah Jessica Parker, already a proven birth mother, use another woman’s body to have […]

When Headlines Lie
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When Headlines Lie

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by on Oct 28, 2013 in Featured, Reproductive Technology
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We all know headlines are meant to sell news, so we are right to read articles through a discerning lens and even some healthy skepticism. We are also wise to consider the source. Is this a trusted reporter? Is this a reliable journal, paper, or author? You can imagine my sense of outrage when last […]

Does IVF Cause More Cancer in Children or Not?
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Does IVF Cause More Cancer in Children or Not?

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by on Oct 10, 2013 in Featured, Reproductive Technology
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The short answer is we don’t know. But another news story is out on a study that raises more questions than it answers regarding the harm to children born via IVF. From the story: Children born as a result of IVF are a third more likely to get cancer, a major study found. Scientists said […]

The Fertility Industry Superhighway
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The Fertility Industry Superhighway

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by on Sep 18, 2013 in Featured, Reproductive Technology
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Miriam Zoll, author of the recent book Cracked Open: Liberty, Fertility and the Pursuit of High-Tech Babies, has a terrific piece in the New York Times on “Selling the Fantasy of Fertility” to those struggling with infertility. She’s co-written the piece with Pamela Tsigdinos, and their voices are important as they write from their personal […]

The High Costs of High-Tech Babies
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The High Costs of High-Tech Babies

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by on Sep 02, 2013 in Featured, Reproductive Technology
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Francoise Baylis, a professor in Bioethics and Philosophy in Canada, has an important piece out on the Quebec law that pays for up to three IVF cycles out of the state-funded public health system. I wrote about this bad decision when Quebec passed the law in 2010. Is it working? Sort of. IVF cycles in […]

Death With Dignity: Coming to a State Near You
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Death With Dignity: Coming to a State Near You

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by on Oct 19, 2012 in Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide, Featured
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With the matter of legalized physician assisted suicide facing the Massachusetts voters this November (and a new law proposed in New Jersey), I thought it would be a good time to remind readers why the CBC opposes physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. To be clear, we support people dying a natural death. Sometimes the zeal for assisted legalized […]

We All Know it's Wrong
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We All Know it’s Wrong

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by on Oct 09, 2012 in Featured, Reproductive Technology
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CBC President Jennifer Lahl interviews Alana S. Newman, the founder of the Anonymous Us Project about an event that took place in New York on October 1. Jennifer: Last week I received a Google alert telling me about a charity fundraising event in New York City to raise money for Gay men to have babies via reproductive technology […]

Freezers are for Food
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Freezers are for Food

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by on Jul 06, 2012 in Featured, Reproductive Technology, Women
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In the world of commercialized conception, it seems we’ve decided the freezer is a great place to keep eggs, sperm, and “spare” embryos until we need them. We think they do pretty well in the freezer, but the verdict is still out on what happens over the long haul when you freeze and store human […]

Money Changes Everything
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Money Changes Everything

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by on May 11, 2012 in Featured, Reproductive Technology
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When the news broke that Mitt and Ann Romney welcomed grandchildren numbers 17 and 18 this past Friday via “gestational surrogacy,” those of us here at CBC central—who oppose commercialized conception—wondered where the bottom is in these murky waters of assisted reproduction. Tagg Romney posted this on his facebook page after the twins were born: […]