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Dr. Jeffrey Kahn: Ethics and the future of human reproduction

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A human fetus developing in a woman's uterus. The conventional sexual method for conceiving a baby is being supplanted by increasingly sophisticated in vitro techniques that promise new options for conception, but also raise complex ethical questions. (photo credit: Aliannys04 via Wikimedia)

Today on Midday on Ethics, a discussion about advancements in technology that change the way humans reproduce.

Tom's guest is Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, the director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. He is also Professor in the Dept. of Health Policy and Management of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In a 2016 book, a researcher named Henry Greely predicted that in a few decades, most people will make babies by methods other than sex. And a recent article in The New Yorker from writer Emily Witt looks into the booming, multi-billion-dollar industry that driving advances in reproductive technologies, such as in vitro fertilization, or IVF.

And now, IVF may eventually give way to a procedure known asIVG, or in vitro gametogenesis. That’s just one of several new methods by which babies can be made, and the reproductive clock for women can be extended.

Dr. Jeffrey Kahn is the Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, a position he has held since July 2016. (photo courtesy Berman Institute)
Dr. Jeffrey Kahn is the Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, a position he has held since July 2016.

Dr. Jeffrey Kahn joins Tom in Studio A.

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