Sep 27, 2026 · 36 min · 11 segments
No IVF. No surrogacy. No polygenic tests. Emma Waters is leading a national fight against fertility tech—with her hot husband’s permission, of course. For more of the most ambitious, future-defining…
She asks that I not use the real names of her two daughters for their safety, even though they've been printed elsewhere.
I'll call them Gertie and Ophelia, which are close enough.
All morning, they play.
Ophelia, the baby, runs around in white tights, shirtless, clutching a pink purse.
Gertie's doll won't stop crying.
Jack, Waters' husband, flits in and out.
There isn't much to say about Jack, other than that he's hot, is studying to be a preacher, and has a big desk at home, much bigger than Waters, featuring a bust of Nietzsche.
In the same room, Waters has a pull-out secretary where she takes meetings, not far from a portrait of a glowering President Trump.
The only thing Waters doesn't really do is exercise.
She hasn't found the time.
Not many people outside of D.C. have heard of Waters, who mostly works from home in a dreary Pennsylvania suburb named after a long-offshored manufacturer.
Yet Waters is a factory for policy papers and op-eds, extolling the harms of unregulated reproductive technology, probing the moral issues that liberals don't want to touch with a 10-foot turkey baster.
At least once a month, reporting on fertility, I ask for an academic source and am instead directed to Waters, author of a biblical woman's leadership book that basically says the best thing about the Barbie movie was the patriarchy.
The craziest thing is that, in certain ways, she's a voice of reason.
America's $10 billion fertility industry is suffering a massive PR crisis that makes the embryo mix-ups and baby-selling schemes of yore seem quaint.
A few recent headlines.
The family law loophole that lets sex offenders parent kids.
Surrogate mother who refuses to abort baby gives birth amid ongoing legal dispute.
Polygenic testing companies promised today's parents that they can pick the tallest, smartest, least bald offspring, mainstreaming debates about the black-white IQ gap.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, a father via surrogacy, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong are invested in an embryo editing startup.
If you believe what they told the Wall Street Journal, their first gene-hacked baby has probably already been born.
Many right-wing techies are jazzed about these developments, which might bump up birth rates or create better spawn.
Many liberals don't know how to talk about the ethical pitfalls.
She asks that I not use the real names of her two daughters for their safety, even though they've been printed elsewhere.
I'll call them Gertie and Ophelia, which are close enough.
All morning, they play.
Ophelia, the baby, runs around in white tights, shirtless, clutching a pink purse.
Gertie's doll won't stop crying.
Jack, Waters' husband, flits in and out.
There isn't much to say about Jack, other than that he's hot, is studying to be a preacher, and has a big desk at home, much bigger than Waters, featuring a bust of Nietzsche.
In the same room, Waters has a pull-out secretary where she takes meetings, not far from a portrait of a glowering President Trump.
The only thing Waters doesn't really do is exercise.
She hasn't found the time.
Not many people outside of D.C. have heard of Waters, who mostly works from home in a dreary Pennsylvania suburb named after a long-offshored manufacturer.
Yet Waters is a factory for policy papers and op-eds, extolling the harms of unregulated reproductive technology, probing the moral issues that liberals don't want to touch with a 10-foot turkey baster.
At least once a month, reporting on fertility, I ask for an academic source and am instead directed to Waters, author of a biblical woman's leadership book that basically says the best thing about the Barbie movie was the patriarchy.
The craziest thing is that, in certain ways, she's a voice of reason.
America's $10 billion fertility industry is suffering a massive PR crisis that makes the embryo mix-ups and baby-selling schemes of yore seem quaint.
A few recent headlines.
The family law loophole that lets sex offenders parent kids.
Surrogate mother who refuses to abort baby gives birth amid ongoing legal dispute.
Polygenic testing companies promised today's parents that they can pick the tallest, smartest, least bald offspring, mainstreaming debates about the black-white IQ gap.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, a father via surrogacy, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong are invested in an embryo editing startup.
If you believe what they told the Wall Street Journal, their first gene-hacked baby has probably already been born.
Many right-wing techies are jazzed about these developments, which might bump up birth rates or create better spawn.
Many liberals don't know how to talk about the ethical pitfalls.
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