For HBS Professor, Babies and Business Intersect

This week's "Spiritual Life" column in the Boston Globe features the work of Debora L. Spar, the Spangler family professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, and president-designate of Barnard College...

This week's "Spiritual Life" column in the Boston Globe features the work of Debora L. Spar, the Spangler family professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, and president-designate of Barnard College.

In her research, Spar, whose books include The Baby Business, explores the assisted-reproduction industry in the United States, considering both the numbers—$3 billion a year—and the ethical implications. She examines the attitudes of various religious traditions and the wider society toward treatments such as in-vitro fertilization and prenatal genetic testing, how these attitudes have developed over time, and what texts and historical customs have affected them.

Read more about Spar and her work in the Globe story—In Baby Business, What are the Rules?—or in a Harvard Magazine story from 2006.

Most popular

In her memoir All That's Unseen, Emilee Hackney explores religion, friendship, and home.

Tomiko Brown-Nagin has been named dean of Stanford’s Graduate School of Education.

Harvard Weathers a Year of Turmoil

The federal government has launched unprecedented actions against the University. Here’s a guide.

Explore More From Current Issue

Black and white photo of Joseph Murray in a white lab coat sitting in an office.

Nobel Prize recipient Joseph E. Murray dedicated much of his career to organ transplant surgery.

Singer performing on stage with a guitar, wearing a hat, and surrounded by band instruments.

Singer Elisa Smith’s whiskey-soaked voice and subversive feminism is part of the genre’s urban shift.

A chaotic scene in a messy room with people engaging in various activities, some cleaning.

Until the 1950s, professionals cleaned up after students in the dorms.