Like the coronavirus, eugenics keeps morphing and mutating to adapt to new environments. In China, for instance, the government has been accused treating women “as the reproductive agents of the state, as instruments of implementation for its eugenic development agenda.”

“The approach’s eugenic undertones are unmistakable,” declared foreign policy expert Leta Hong Fincher last year. “Even as officials urge college-educated, Han Chinese women to marry and get pregnant, they are discouraging, sometimes through coercion, ethnic minorities with high birthrates — particularly Uighurs in the northwestern region of Xinjiang — from having more children.”

But the government is not necessarily… MORE

^{Plaça de Sant Felip Neri, Barcelona, site of executions during the Spanish Civil War}

The American state of South Carolina has not executed anyone for ten years. Back then, prison authorities used lethal injections. In the meantime, because of supplier boycotts and legal and ethical misgivings about whether lethal injections are a “cruel and unusual punishment”, this option may not be available.

So the state’s upper house has approved the use of firing squads, which are said to provide a quicker and painless death.

The electric chair is another option, but some people do not die instantly… MORE

Forty-three-year-old transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard will almost certainly represent New Zealand in the women’s super heavyweight category at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Hubbard won a silver at the 2017 world championships and is currently ranked 16th in the world in her category.

If she attends, she will be the first transgender athlete to compete in the Olympics.

Hubbard lived as a man for 35 years and never qualified for international weightlifting competitions. But since transitioning in 2012 she has won several titles including two gold medals at the 2019 Pacific Games in Samoa and a gold at the Roma… MORE

The birth rate in the United States fell 4% in 2020. It was the largest single-year decrease in nearly 50 years, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The rate dropped for mothers of every major race and ethnicity, and in nearly every age group. It has declined to the lowest point recorded in US history.

Amongst younger women, births have been declining for years, because of postponed motherhood and smaller families. But that was partially offset by slightly higher birth rates for women in their late 30s and in their 40s. But not in… MORE

^{Elizabeth Parris} 

A Seattle biotech company has bypassed US regulators and sent six volunteers with dementia to Mexico to receive a controversial gene therapy injection.

In March, Elizabeth Parrish, the CEO of BioVia, told a webinar with the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine that drug safety regulation in the US is a substantial barrier to lifesaving and life-lengthening therapies. BioViva’s advisory board includes George Church, the renowned Harvard geneticist.

According to STAT, Parrish said that she was awaiting results from a human study conducted last year in Mexico.

“If true, it would be the… MORE

Political resistance in the United Kingdom to assisted suicide seems to be weakening after the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, revealed that he was reconsidering his opposition.

The London Telegraph reported that he has asked the government statistician to provide figures about how many suicides are prompted by a terminal illness. Mr Hancock says that he wants the debate to be informed by the best statistics on the problem.

One factor in the debate is the growing number of Britons who seek assisted suicide in Switzerland, where it is legal.

It appears that the health secretary’s view was changed by… MORE

German doctors have dropped their opposition to assisted suicide, in a controversial move which could pave the way for complete legalisation of euthanasia.

The German Doctors' Congress (Bundesärztekammer) this week voted to make professional regulations for doctors on assisted suicide consistent with a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court in February last year.

"The general right of personality includes a right to self-determined death as an expression of personal autonomy", the judges decreed. "This right includes the freedom to take one's own life, to seek help from third parties and, if it is offered, to take advantage… MORE

South Australia. SA’s Upper House voted for the legalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide this week. The bill will be debated in the Lower House in the coming weeks. If it succeeds, South Australia will become the fourth Australian state where “voluntary assisted dying” will be legal, after Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania.

The Health Minister, Stephen Wade, is backing the bill. Mr Wade said there was significant value in having national consistency of voluntary assisted dying legislation in Australia. "Consistency would support access, it would support quality and safe practice and it would reduce the pressure for what… MORE

Even as nations struggle to cope with Covid-19 catastrophes, 23 world leaders have called for the adoption of an international pandemic treaty. Amongst the signatories are the leaders of the United Kingdom, Germany, South Africa, France, and Indonesia, as well as Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organisation.

Notable by their absence were the heads of the United States, China, Brazil and India.

The text of their joint statement explains:

The main goal of this treaty would be to foster an all of government and all of society approach, strengthening national, regional and global capacities… MORE

A new chapter in the Reproductive Revolution. A polyamorous “throuple” in British Columbia has succeeded in a legal battle to have all of their names recorded on their baby’s birth certificate.

Bill, Eliza and Olivia have lived as a “triad” since 2017. The baby, Clarke, was conceived through sexual intercourse between Bill and Eliza. But Olivia induced lactation so that she could care for Clarke and was the first to feed him after his birth. Since then, the three partners and their child have lived an active family life.

In her judgement, Justice Sandra Wilkinson said that there was… MORE