Commercial surrogacy and egg freezing parties. Police DNA databases and resurgent claims about race as biology. Early-pregnancy fetal gene tests and “precision gene editing.” New biotech products and practices are bringing us face to face with unprecedented personal and societal decisions, and never-before-considered political and ethical dilemmas. Public attention to the challenges posed by human genetics and assisted reproductive technologies is typically episodic and disconnected. Only a few public interest organizations have programs addressing them. And public policies are thin at best, especially in the US. Yet in this talk, we’ll look at signs that a new biopolitics is emerging.

Marcy Darnovsky (Center for Genetics and Society) speaks and writes widely on the politics of human biotechnology, focusing on their social justice and public interest implications. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, Nature, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Harvard Law and Policy Review, Democracy, Contraception, New Scientist, RH Reality Check and many others.