Dear friends,

We hope your summer was as successful and fun as ours! When we last wrote, we informed you of a generous donor’s offer to double your donations throughout the month of May. Your kindness exceeded our expectations, and, thanks to your generosity, we were able to reach $30,633 toward our matching donation! This gift allowed us to have a very productive summer with exciting events coming to fruition this fall.

First, we are thrilled to announce that our research on gestational surrogate mothers in the U.S. has been published! After two years of planning, researching, and writing, the CBC has added peer-reviewed research to the scientific community. Performing a large research study takes a lot of time, resources, and money. Many educational institutions fund research through grants and private donations. Our private donors like you are solely responsible for helping us conduct and make this important information available. We interviewed 96 women who had completed both their own biological (or spontaneous) pregnancies as well as one or more gestational surrogate pregnancies. Among many other findings, our data revealed that a woman was more likely to have a pregnancy that was high-risk during a surrogate pregnancy than during a non-surrogate pregnancy. Further, we found that surrogate mothers were more likely to have unfavorable outcomes during a surrogate pregnancy, including: high blood pressure, hemorrhage, pre-term labor, placenta previa, postpartum depression, and postpartum high blood pressure. Hopefully, with research contributions like ours, #BigFertility won’t be able to continue to ignore the harms to women and children from surrogacy contracts.

Secondly, our newest documentary film, The Detransition Dairies will be released on September 19th, 2022!! To celebrate the documentary’s release, we will be having a premiere showing in Livermore, CA. As a supporter of The Center for Bioethics and Culture, we would like to formally invite you to witness firsthand the fruits of your support. After the film, attendees are invited to stay for a Q&A with the filmmakers and a parent on the forefront of the gender ideology battle. If you are not able to personally attend, we will be releasing the movie to our Vimeo channel that same evening! We are still raising money to finish our film. Its success depends on you! You can support us and our new documentary many ways. First, donate, donate, donate. Films like this are a labor of love that take a lot of time, energy, and money to produce, market, and translate. Secondly, watch, like, and share the trailer, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Ask your friends to do the same. Once the film is released, share the film far and wide with your friends, family, and on your social media accounts.

Finally, but certainly not least, we would like to introduce Kirstin Wallace as the Development Director at the CBC. Due to your faithful giving, we are growing at the CBC. She brings a wide array of experience to the role and has faithfully served on the Board of Directors for the last three years.

With summer being vacation mode for many, our financial support dramatically drops off over these months. Despite this lull, we have laid the groundwork for an exciting fall, continually bringing you and others the resources needed to stay educated on ethical issues in healthcare, biomedical research, and biotechnological advancement. Please consider financially supporting our work with a monthly donation.

Thank you,

Jennifer Lahl, President
Kallie Fell, Executive Director