Born Well

The international eugenics movement forms the backdrop of much of modern-day bioethics. Particularly in genomic research and medicine, advancements often bring renewed ethical worries about eugenics and its philosophy of improving the human race—encapsulated in its very name, meaning “good stock” or “well born.”

Nowhere have such worries been more apparent than in the arena of prenatal and preconception genomic testing. Our concern today is not just the import of valuing the so-called “well born,” but the many meanings and values implicit in being “born well.”

The volume Born Well: Prenatal Genomics and the Future of Having Children, co-edited with Megan Allyse, incorporates new research and insights on the fast-moving field of preconception and prenatal genomics, bringing together perspectives from biomedicine, philosophy, feminism, social science, and the law to illuminate some of today’s most pressing issues in reproductive ethics and law. Born Well is published by Springer Cham as part of the series The International Library of Bioethics, ed. DR Cooley.