When Ashley Womble decides she wants to start a family, she worries she'll need to stop taking her antidepressant medication. Instead of finding clear guidance, she runs head-first into a troubling reality: many of the questions pregnant women and their physicians face about medication safety remain difficult to answer because pregnant women have historically been excluded from medical research. This episode looks at the ethical trade offs of leaving pregnant women out of medical research—and what happens when they and their doctors must make high stakes healthcare decisions without high quality evidence.

This episode features:

Ashley Womble, MPH: Writer and marketing professional.

Ruth Faden, PhD, MPH: Philip Franklin Wagley Professor of Biomedical Ethics at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.

Crystal Clark, MD, MSc: Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto.

Marika Toscano, MD, MS: Assistant Professor of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

This episode contains references to suicide, which may be distressing for some listeners. If you or someone you know is struggling, support is available.

In the U.S., you can call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline at 1-833-TLC-MAMA.

For listeners outside the U.S., the International Association for Suicide Prevention can help connect you with support in your area: www.iasp.info/suicidalthoughts/

“playing god?” is a podcast by the iDeas Lab at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. 

To read a transcript of this episode, visit the iDeas Lab website at https://bioethics.jhu.edu/pgs2e6.

The Johns Hopkins University Sesquicentennial is proud to support this podcast. JHU celebrates 150 years of pioneering education and research—advancing knowledge to meet the challenges of every generation. Learn more at 150.jhu.edu.

Rebecca Morrison is healthy by many measures. But like millions of people today, she finds herself wondering whether or not she should be taking a GLP-1 drug. What's the right thing to do? This episode explores how this new class of weight loss drugs is reshaping our healthcare choices, and the landscape in which we make them.

You can read more about Rebecca Morrison’s story in her novel, The Blue Dress, released March 2026. 

This episode features:

Rebecca K. Morrison: Writer.

Mara Gordon, MD: Primary Care Physician at Cooper University Hospital and Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University.

Alexandra Brewis, PhD: Regents Professor and President's Professor at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University.

Jeffrey Kahn, PhD, MPH: Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.

“playing god?” is a podcast by the iDeas Lab at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. 

To read a transcript of this episode, visit the iDeas Lab website at https://bioethics.jhu.edu/pgs2e5.

The Johns Hopkins University Sesquicentennial is proud to support this podcast. JHU celebrates 150 years of pioneering education and research—advancing knowledge to meet the challenges of every generation. Learn more at 150.jhu.edu.

After losing their son Noahto to mitochondrial disease, Kristelle and Evan Shulman are determined that his death will not be in vain, holding fast to their dream of having healthy, biologically-related children. This search leads them abroad in pursuit of an emerging reproductive technology, one filled with scientific promise, but also ethical questions, financial strain, and profound uncertainty. This episode explores how families and physicians make decisions when novel approaches can reduce risk, but never eliminate it. (Part 2 of 2.)

This episode features:

Kristelle and Evan Shulman: Parents navigating mitochondrial disease and reproductive decisionmaking.

Marni Falk, MD: Attending physician and Executive Director of the Mitochondrial Medicine Frontier Program at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Professor in the Division of Human Genetics, Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.

Jeffrey Kahn, PhD, MPH: Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.

“playing god?” is a podcast by the iDeas Lab at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. 

To read a transcript of this episode, visit the iDeas Lab website at https://bioethics.jhu.edu/pgs2e4.

The Johns Hopkins University Sesquicentennial is proud to support this podcast. JHU celebrates 150 years of pioneering education and research—advancing knowledge to meet the challenges of every generation. Learn more at 150.jhu.edu.

When Kristelle and Evan Shulman lose their young son Noah to a rare mitochondrial disease, they are told they may never be able to have a healthy biologically related child. Then they discover mitochondrial replacement technology, or MRT, a controversial procedure that could prevent the disease from being passed on to future generations. This episode explores how families, clinicians, and policymakers grapple with the ethics of novel reproductive technologies that offer extraordinary hope amid profound uncertainty. (Part 1 of 2.)

This episode features:

Kristelle and Evan Shulman: Parents navigating mitochondrial disease and reproductive decision-making.

Marni Falk, MD: Attending physician and Executive Director of the Mitochondrial Medicine Frontier Program at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Professor in the Division of Human Genetics, Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.

Jeffrey Kahn, PhD, MPH: Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.

“playing god?” is a podcast by the iDeas Lab at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. 

To read a transcript of this episode, visit the iDeas Lab website at https://bioethics.jhu.edu/pgs2e3.

The Johns Hopkins University Sesquicentennial is proud to support this podcast. JHU celebrates 150 years of pioneering education and research—advancing knowledge to meet the challenges of every generation. Learn more at 150.jhu.edu.

Humanity is actively working towards a mission to Mars. When astronauts like Bernard Harris leave Earth, they accept risk as part of the mission. But a journey to Mars would push that risk into entirely new territory—where help is unreachable, uncertainty is unavoidable, and coming home may not be an option. This episode explores how space agencies, astronauts, and all of us need to grapple with how much risk is ethically acceptable for individuals to take on in pursuit of societal benefit, and who gets to decide. 

This episode features:

Bernard A. Harris Jr., MD: former NASA astronaut.

James D. Polk, DO: Chief Health and Medical Officer of NASA.

Jeffrey Kahn, PhD, MPH: Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.

“playing god?” is a podcast by the iDeas Lab at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. 

To read a transcript of this episode, visit the iDeas Lab website at https://bioethics.jhu.edu/pgs2e2.

The Johns Hopkins University Sesquicentennial is proud to support this podcast. JHU celebrates 150 years of pioneering education and research—advancing knowledge to meet the challenges of every generation. Learn more at 150.jhu.edu.

When journalist Esmé Deprez receives a text from her father, Ron Deprez, asking for help to die, she enters one of the most ethically fraught spaces in modern medicine: Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD). This episode explores what it means to assist a loved one’s death under MAiD law—and how personal compassion collides with professional and societal ethics.

This episode features:

Esmé E. Deprez: Writer and investigative journalist. 

Jeffrey Kahn, PhD, MPH: Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.

Jennifer Eitingon, MD: Medical Director of Monument Health Hospice and Inpatient Palliative Care Attending Physician.

You can see photos and read more about Esmé and Ron Deprez’s story in her 2021 essay, “Death With Dignity: How I Helped My Dad Die.” 

“playing god?” is a podcast by the iDeas Lab at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. 

To read a transcript of this episode, visit the iDeas Lab website at https://bioethics.jhu.edu/pgs2e1 

The Johns Hopkins University Sesquicentennial is proud to support this podcast. JHU celebrates 150 years of pioneering education and research—advancing knowledge to meet the challenges of every generation. Learn more at 150.jhu.edu.

Life and death decisions. Difficult tradeoffs. “playing god?” explores ethical dilemmas in health and medicine through the first-person stories of people who have lived them. Brought to you by the Dracopoulos-Bloomberg iDeas Lab at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. New episodes weekly starting May 19. 

Season Two of playing god? is coming soon. Here's a preview of what's in the works.

Back in the 1960s, a committee of seven Seattle residents met regularly to decide which patients with chronic kidney disease were “worthy” of life-saving dialysis.  Whoever wasn’t selected by the committee would likely die within months. An exposé of this so-called “God Squad” helped spark the formation of a new field: bioethics. In this prequel to playing god?, we’ll find out how this committee made life-and-death decisions, and why something like it is unlikely to happen again. 

Show Notes:

This episode features interviews with: 

Richard M. Mizelle, Jr., Associate Professor of History, University of Houston

Kate Butler, Assistant Professor of Nephrology, University of Washington School of Medicine

The God Squad was just one of many notable cases that led to the formation of the field of bioethics. The Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute, has compiled a timeline of many of the most famous cases and their impact. Check it out here. 

The Berman Institute has also collected oral histories– first hand accounts of the doctors, philosophers, lawyers and other scholars who were involved in many of these cases. You can explore that collection here. 

To learn more about the ethics issues raised in this episode, visit the Berman Institute’s episode guide. 

The Greenwall Foundation seeks to make bioethics integral to decisions in health care, policy, and research. Learn more at greenwall.org.

In this episode we head into the future to learn about a controversial technology that could change the face of reproduction. Researchers are developing a technology called in vitro gametogenesis (IVG), which can reprogram human cells–like a skin cell–to become eggs or sperm. With IVG we could reach a future where anyone could produce either eggs or sperm, in potentially limitless quantities. This could open up a whole world of new options for how humans reproduce. Startup companies are working to bring this science to the public in ways that bypass the usual research routes for new reproductive technologies. When would it be ethically acceptable to try IVG to make a baby? How can we ensure the technology will be used ethically, including how it should be regulated? 

Show Notes:

This episode features interviews with:

Amander Clark, Professor, Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology,  University of California, Los Angeles

I. Glenn Cohen, James A. Attwood and Leslie Williams Professor of Law, Deputy Dean and Faculty Director, Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology & Bioethics, Harvard Law School

In 2023, the National Academies held a meeting to discuss the scientific, ethical, and legal implications of IVG. You can watch this meeting and learn more about IVG here. 

To learn more about the ethics issues raised in this episode, visit the Berman Institute’s episode guide. 

The Greenwall Foundation seeks to make bioethics integral to decisions in health care, policy, and research. Learn more at greenwall.org.