People who are pregnant or planning to be should be as clear as possible about their wishes for end-of-life care during pregnancy.
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Laws such as Alabama’s controversial ruling that gives personhood rights to frozen embryos will have ripple effects on how advance directives are interpreted by doctors and the courts.
Spencer and Gabby Goidel hadn’t planned to become activists.
Spencer and Gabby Goidel
I’m a scholar, not an activist or an advocate. But now one of the most intimate, personal events of our lives had been turned into a political event by the state’s highest court.
Some of the eggs and sperm in these tubes stored in liquid nitrogen may go on to form an embryo.
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IVF is a decades-old procedure that has allowed increasing numbers of prospective parents to have children. Evolving legislation may put it under threat.
A few days after successful fertilization, an embryo becomes a rapidly dividing ball of cells called a blastocyst.
Juan Gaertner/Science Photo Library via Getty Images
Scientists can create viable eggs from two male mice. In the wake of CRISPR controversies and restrictive abortion laws, two experts start a dialogue on ethical research in reproductive biology.
In an ectopic pregnancy, when the growing embryo causes a uterine tube rupture like the one in this micrograph, the patient could die from internal bleeding or infection without emergency surgery.
Cultura RM Exclusive/Michael J. Klein, M.D./Image Source via Getty Images
Treating a potentially deadly pregnancy complication gets caught up in the abortion debate. A nurse-midwife explains why it shouldn’t.
Louise Brown, who was the world’s first baby to be born from in vitro fertilization (IVF) in 1978, poses with equipment used in early IVF treatments.
Daniel Leal-Olivas/ Getty
Naomi Cahn, University of Virginia and Dena Sharp, University of California College of the Law, San Francisco
An unknown number of people have lost their dreams of parenthood because of storage disasters at fertility clinics. These experts note poor government oversight and the need for stronger regulation.
A human blastocyst. Researchers have now created ‘model’ versions of this early embryonic structure by reprogramming human skin cells.
Harimiao/Wikimedia Commons
Two research groups have turned human skin cells into structures resembling an early-stage human embryo, paving the way for exciting new research avenues, and opening up some tricky ethical questions.
Expect fewer visits to the clinic, fewer people in the waiting room at once, and temperature checks.
IVF and the businesses that spring up alongside it are part of a multi-billion dollar global market for fertility treatments.
from www.shutterstock.com
The story of how human eggs became an integral part of a multi-billion dollar global fertility industry starts in a unlikely place: the sex lives of farm animals.
When it comes to reproduction, couple have more choices than ever before.
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A ban on clinical trials involving gene editing rules out the controversial procedure done in China. But it also prevents procedures that could offer couples a chance for healthy children without genetic disorders.
He Jiankui claims he helped make the world’s first genetically edited babies: twin girls whose DNA he said he altered.
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
News of the gene-edited babies excludes images of the children’s mother. Cutting her out of the picture underscores the idea that the mother is obsolete and babies can be created in the lab.
A 12-week-old baby female macaque, named Grady, was born from frozen testicular tissue.
Oregon Health and Science University
Children with cancer not only endure chemotherapy or radiation treatment but they may also face infertility in adulthood. Now a new procedure, just proven in monkeys, may be close to use in humans.
Age is the biggest predictor of IVF success, but not all clinics are equal.
Brooke Cagle
Hannah Brown, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute and Louise Hull, University of Adelaide
If you’re one of the one in six Australian couples experiencing infertility, you’ve probably thought about IVF. Here’s a step by step breakdown of how it all works.
Forecasts of designer babies followed the announcement of the gene-edited twins, just as they have for any reproductive technology since 1978. This signals the public must learn more about genetics.
In a masterfully manipulative Youtube video, He Jiankui tells the world about the first genetically edited babies.
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
To announce the world’s first gene-edited babies, scientist He Jiankui did what movie directors do: release a trailer on YouTube. The video is a positive spin on unauthorized gene editing.
He Jiankui, a Chinese researcher, speaks during the Human Genome Editing Conference in Hong Kong, Nov. 28, 2018. He made his first public comments about his claim of making the world’s first gene-edited babies.
AP Photo/Kin Cheung
Chinese researcher He Jiankui told a spellbound audience how he created gene-edited babies. With a couple of revealing slides, we can see what he did and speculate what health problems might ensue.
New procedures are enabling men and women to preserve their fertility until they are ready or able to have children.
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For women and men not ready to have children, there are new ways to preserve fertility. And experimental techniques offer hope for sick children whose treatments jeopardize future childbearing.
The concept of three-parent babies defies what we learned in health class. But how and when is the third parent involved? At what stage? Jennifer Barfield gives us an update on the birds and the bees.
Acupuncture might alleviate stress for women undertaking IVF.
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Americans have moved on from worrying about ‘test-tube babies’ – but there are still ethical challenges to resolve as reproductive technologies continue to advance.