Bioethics Babe

Could your miscarriage have been prevented? What if the cause of your pregnancy loss was something your doctor never investigated? Miscarriage affects approximately 1 in 5 recognized pregnancies. Yet too often, women are told their loss was simply bad luck, a chromosomal abnormality, or a consequence of age. They're told to try again, sometimes without a thorough investigation into what went wrong...

What if saving a human life could itself be morally wrong? More than 1.5 million human embryos are estimated to be frozen in the United States, many abandoned by the parents who created them through in vitro fertilization (IVF). For some, the solution seems obvious: Why not adopt these embryos, give them a chance to be born, and welcome them into loving families? But is embryo adoption an act of m...

Can you oppose IVF and still support embryo adoption? If IVF violates the dignity of the child by separating procreation from the marital act, what happens once that child already exists, frozen and unable to continue developing? Would embryo adoption repeat the original wrong of IVF, or could it be an act of rescue? In Part 1 of a special Bioethics Babe series examining the arguments for and agai...

How early can a baby be born and survive? And what happens when whether that baby receives lifesaving care depends on which hospital the mother walks into? The edge of viability is moving. Babies born at 22 weeks are surviving and thriving, and there are now documented survivors born at just 21 weeks. But outcomes can vary dramatically depending on where a baby is born, whether active treatment is...

Are we our bodies? Or are our bodies simply something we have, something we can control, alter, suppress, or even redesign to conform to who we believe ourselves to be? Nearly half a century ago, St. John Paul II began delivering the 129 lectures that would become known as the Theology of the Body. But far from being simply a Catholic teaching about sex and marriage, Theology of the Body offers a...

Our culture prizes autonomy, independence, and self-sufficiency. But what happens when we inevitably need someone else? From the preborn child who is completely dependent on his or her mother, to the person living with profound disability, to the elderly patient who can no longer care for himself, some of the most vulnerable human beings are also the most dependent. So if we equate dignity with au...

What gives our work dignity? It begins with the dignity of the person who does it. This Labor Day, as we celebrate the contributions of workers who build, create, serve, care for others, and sustain our communities, we’re reminded of something deeper: our worth is not determined by our productivity, accomplishments, abilities, or even our capacity to work. Every human person possesses inherent dig...

A surrogate was hired. Then, at 20 weeks, he was diagnosed with a serious heart defect, and everything changed. McKenna West, a 28-year-old cardiac nurse and mother of two, says the intended parents asked her to abort their biological son after he was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS). Their surrogacy agreement reportedly required termination for a fetal abnormality if the inte...

What happens when a mother facing a devastating pregnancy complication is told that continuing her pregnancy could cost her uterus or even her life? When Julia Wilson-Franks’ water broke just after 19 weeks, her daughter Lucia was still alive. But Julia says that over the next 10 days, numerous OB/GYNs repeatedly pressured her to induce labor or end her pregnancy. One doctor asked her, “Are you wi...

Can a 13-year-old order abortion pills online without anyone verifying her age, confirming her pregnancy, or speaking with her face-to-face? Dr. Christina Francis, a board-certified OB/GYN and CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG), decided to find out. She went undercover, posing as a 13-year-old with multiple serious medical risk factors, including s...

Has environmentalism become so politicized that Catholics have forgotten what the Church actually teaches? And here’s the bigger question: Is caring for the environment actually a pro-life issue? In this episode of Bioethics Babe , I sit down with Clare Ath, co-founder and president of Vita et Terra, to unpack a side of Catholic teaching that is often misunderstood, dismissed, or surrendered to po...

Four years after Roe v. Wade was overturned, did Dobbs actually save babies? Many headlines claim abortions have increased, pro-life laws have failed, maternal deaths have risen, and women are receiving worse medical care. But does the data support those claims? In this evidence-driven conversation, Dr. Michael New, assistant professor at The Catholic University of America, Senior Associate Schola...

When your child is born with a severe brain injury, how do you grieve the future you imagined while fully embracing the child in front of you? Where do you find hope when doctors, therapies, uncertainty, and endless medical decisions become your new normal? In this powerful episode of Bioethics Babe podcast, Arina Grossu Agnew sits down with Anja Baker—pro-life advocate, wife, mother of four, and...

Artificial intelligence is transforming medicine, health care, education, scientific research, and nearly every aspect of modern life. But as AI becomes more powerful, one question rises above all the others: What does it mean to be human? In this episode of Bioethics Babe, Arina Grossu Agnew explores Pope Leo XIV's groundbreaking encyclical Magnifica Humanitas ("Magnificent Humanity") and examine...

She took the abortion pill... then changed her mind just hours later. Is there anything that can be done? Thousands of women have found themselves in this heartbreaking situation, believing there was no hope. But according to family physician and abortion pill reversal pioneer Dr. George Delgado, that isn't always the end of the story. In this in-depth conversation, Dr. Delgado explains the scienc...

Millions of couples struggle with infertility, yet few realize that not every fertility treatment is ethically the same. Is IVF the only option? Is IUI morally acceptable? Why does the Catholic Church oppose some reproductive technologies while embracing others? And what happens to the millions of frozen embryos already in storage? In this episode of Bioethics Babe, I sit down with Joe Zalot, PhD,...

Happy Independence Day! As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States, we remember the enduring truth proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence: that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. At Bioethics Babe, our mission is to defend the inherent dignity of every human person...

What happens to a society when it starts killing its elderly? What happens when a doctor offers death to a lonely senior before offering treatment? When a grandchild loses a grandparent not to disease, but to euthanasia? When aging parents begin to wonder whether they're a burden rather than a gift? In Canada, euthanasia now accounts for approximately 1 in 20 deaths, and the program continues to e...

Donor conception is often celebrated as a gift, a miracle, and a pathway to parenthood. But what if your missing parent was missing by design? What if the person who created you intentionally planned for one or both of your biological parents to never be part of your life? What does it mean to intentionally separate a child from one or both of his or her biological parents before birth? Do childre...

Seven miscarriages. Two living children. Countless questions. What does it actually feel like to lose a child through miscarriage? What happens when the pregnancy test line starts fading and you realize you're about to lose another baby? Why do so many women feel completely unprepared for the physical, emotional, and spiritual reality of miscarriage, despite the fact that roughly 1 in 4 pregnancie...

Did the women's movement get hijacked? Former Cosmopolitan writer and Subverted author Sue Ellen Browder says yes, and she says she helped do it. In this eye-opening conversation, Sue shares what she witnessed inside Cosmopolitan during the height of the sexual revolution, how media narratives helped reshape American views on sex, marriage, motherhood, and abortion, and why she believes the women'...

Egg freezing is sold as empowerment. A way to “pause” fertility, focus on career and relationships, and have children later on your own timeline. But what if that promise isn’t as secure as women are being told? In this explosive episode of Bioethics Babe, Jennifer Lahl, founder of the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network and director of the documentary Eggsploitation , exposes the risks, real...

What happens when science gains the power not only to heal human life, but to redesign it? Scientists are now creating lab-made embryos from stem cells, experimenting with three-parent embryos, pursuing gene editing technologies like CRISPR, and exploring ways to grow human life outside the womb. What once sounded like science fiction is rapidly becoming reality. In this episode of Bioethics Babe,...

What do you do when doctors tell you there’s “no hope”? When former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum and his wife Karen received a Trisomy 18 diagnosis for their daughter Bella, they were told she had a condition “incompatible with life.” They were encouraged to prepare for her death. But Bella lived. Now she’s turning 18 years old, something many doctors never expected she wo...

What do you do when the questions never go away? Suicide doesn’t just leave grief in its wake. It leaves silence, confusion, and questions that don’t have clear answers. Could I have done something? Did I miss something? Where was God? In this deeply personal conversation, Dr. Brick Lantz, orthopedic surgeon, bioethicist, and author of Raw Musings: Journaling Following My Son’s Suicide , shares wh...