Caroline Funk

Human embryologists’ best-kept secret could arguably be the Carnegie Stages of Human Embryonic Development. This system was established in 1942 and classifies the first eight weeks of every human being’s life into 23 stages based on objective developmental mile markers, beginning at the first contact of egg

"A third baby is not allowed so we are renting a home away from our village. The local government carries out pregnancy examinations every three months. If we weren't in hiding, they would have forced us to have an abortion," a father of three in China told BBC reporter John Sudworth in a secret interview in 2016. Sudworth then asked him, “If they had come for your wife, to carry out this forced abortion, would it have been possible to resist? Could you have refused?” The father answered, “No we cannot resist. There would be many family planning officers to take us away. They would put us in a van, directly to the family planning office, for the abortion.”

In opening scenes of the sci-fi thriller Gattaca, the viewer meets a couple who decides to conceive their second child by In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), which has become the “natural” method in this futuristic society. They are told by the scientist who created, screened, and edited the DNA of their embryos, “This child is still you, simply the best of you. You could conceive naturally a thousand times and never get such a result.”

Bipartisan legislation recently emerged in the U.S. House of Representatives against assisted suicide and for real health care for Americans facing illness and the end of life. The concurrent resolution H.Con.Res.80 expresses “the sense of the Congress that assisted suicide… puts everyone, including those most vulnerable, at risk of deadly harm and undermines the integrity of the health care system.” This resolution is a positive step towards educating Americans about the dangers of physician-assisted suicide and discussing true comprehensive health care – including palliative care, hospice, and life-extending treatments – for Americans facing the end of life.