The Religious Institute, a multifaith organization based in Westport, Conn., in September 2009 published “A Time to be Born: A Faith-Based Guide to Assisted Reproductive Technologies.” The guide is descibed as “the first multifaith resource to address the scientific and ethical complexities of reproductive technologies from a religious perspective.”

In November 2009, the Catholic bishops of the United States approved a document called “Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology,” which explains the Catholic Church’s opposition to a range of infertility treatments and addresses certain developments in biotechnology in light of church teaching. Among other things, the document notes that while the church regards frozen embryos […]

Read a Jan. 25, 2010, New York Times story about advances in fertility technology and the potential and current ethical and legal problems they pose.

A Los Angeles doctor, Jeff Steinberg, provoked an uproar in March 2009 when he offered to help prospective parents choose embryos based on eye and hair color. He later retracted the offer and said he would limit the selection to screening for genetic diseases. Read about it in a March 3, 2009, article from the New York Daily […]

In December 2009 the state medical board of California filed a complaint against Kamrava accusing him of “gross negligence.” Read about the complaint a  Jan. 4, 2010, article from CNN.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the nation’s chief professional organization for physicians who treat infertility, expelled Dr. Michael Kamrava, the Beverly Hills fertility specialist responsible for the eight babies born in January 2009 to Nadya Suleman. As this USA Today story reports, the society confirmed in October 2009 that its disciplinary committee took the action against Kamrava for repeatedly […]

Roberta Springer Loewy is an associate clinical professor of bioethics at the University of California, Davis. She is co-author of The Ethics of Terminal Care: Orchestrating the End of Life and the author of Integrity and Personhood: Looking at Patients From a Bio/Psycho/Social Perspective.

Stuart Rosenbaum is a philosophy professor at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and co-editor of Caring for the Dying: Critical Issues at the Edge of Life.

Jos V.M. Welie is a professor of medical and dental ethics in the Center for Health Policy and Ethics at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. He is co-author of Death and Medical Power: An Ethical Analysis of Dutch Euthanasia Practice.