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

How Philosophy at Harvard Saved Itself

As humanities shrink across higher education, one department is flourishing. Is its success a fluke, or a roadmap?

President-elect Claudine Gay Announces Interim Deans

Appointments for engineering and public health schools, extension of divinity school dean’s tenure

How Harvard might explain itself to the world

How Harvard might better explain itself to faculty, friends, and the world at large

Explore More From Current Issue

A girl in blue boots stands on a cliff, holding a leash attached to a glowing, digital dog.

Establishing legal responsibility for autonomous agents

Colorful illustration of a split-level house showing various activities in different rooms.

Can the College do more to prepare students for the real world?

Colorful icons representing sleep, fruit, speech, and a mind with a water lily.

Check back soon to take our survey!