Kim Krawiec
@kimkrawiec.bsky.social
Law Prof, University of Virginia. Taboo and repugnant markets, contracts, business law. Host of the Taboo Trades podcast https://tabootrades.buzzsprout.com https://www.law.virginia.edu/faculty/profile/kdk4q/1181653
Didn't know this bit until @alroth.bsky.social's post: "Journals like AMA JoE operate a year or more in advance, so multiple authors & editors of upcoming issues for 2026-2027 were left in the lurch by this unexpected announcement. . .some of which have already undergone extensive editorial review"
A wide-ranging set of developments this week: private judges, the shuttering of the AMA Journal of Ethics, pronatalist gene-editing debates, and Jaworski’s new plasma brief.
Full analysis: kimberlydkrawiec.substack.com/p/taboo-and-...
Full analysis: kimberlydkrawiec.substack.com/p/taboo-and-...
Taboo and Repugnant Roundup (Week of 11/25)
Thoughts on taboo trades, repugnant markets, and academia this week
kimberlydkrawiec.substack.com
November 25, 2025 at 4:54 PM
Didn't know this bit until @alroth.bsky.social's post: "Journals like AMA JoE operate a year or more in advance, so multiple authors & editors of upcoming issues for 2026-2027 were left in the lurch by this unexpected announcement. . .some of which have already undergone extensive editorial review"
Reposted by Kim Krawiec
My latest article, “The Legal Somatics of Body Bequests Before the Anatomy Act 1832”, is published in Mortality, an interdisciplinary journal on death and dying. In the article, I analyze the medico-legal history of 18th- and 19th-century body bequests in England and Ireland. doi.org/10.1080/1357...
The legal somatics of body bequests before the Anatomy Act 1832
Without the authority of legislation in the United Kingdom, some bequeathed their bodies to physicians, surgeons and apothecaries to dissect and create anatomical specimens in the eighteenth and ea...
doi.org
November 25, 2025 at 12:18 AM
My latest article, “The Legal Somatics of Body Bequests Before the Anatomy Act 1832”, is published in Mortality, an interdisciplinary journal on death and dying. In the article, I analyze the medico-legal history of 18th- and 19th-century body bequests in England and Ireland. doi.org/10.1080/1357...
A wide-ranging set of developments this week: private judges, the shuttering of the AMA Journal of Ethics, pronatalist gene-editing debates, and Jaworski’s new plasma brief.
Full analysis: kimberlydkrawiec.substack.com/p/taboo-and-...
Full analysis: kimberlydkrawiec.substack.com/p/taboo-and-...
Taboo and Repugnant Roundup (Week of 11/25)
Thoughts on taboo trades, repugnant markets, and academia this week
kimberlydkrawiec.substack.com
November 25, 2025 at 12:28 PM
A wide-ranging set of developments this week: private judges, the shuttering of the AMA Journal of Ethics, pronatalist gene-editing debates, and Jaworski’s new plasma brief.
Full analysis: kimberlydkrawiec.substack.com/p/taboo-and-...
Full analysis: kimberlydkrawiec.substack.com/p/taboo-and-...
Should India return to its laissez-faire ART era, refine altruistic models, or design an entirely new framework focused on workers’ rights? We reflect on constitutional challenges & the prospects for compensated, rights-protective surrogacy.
Full episode:
Full episode:
Reproductive Labor in India with Prabha Kotiswaran - Taboo Trades
My guest today is Prabha Kotiswaran, a Professor of Law & Social Justice at King’s College London. Professor Kotiswaran’s main areas of research include criminal law, transnational criminal law, feminist...
www.buzzsprout.com
November 25, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Should India return to its laissez-faire ART era, refine altruistic models, or design an entirely new framework focused on workers’ rights? We reflect on constitutional challenges & the prospects for compensated, rights-protective surrogacy.
Full episode:
Full episode:
And that’s a wrap! Our final #RepugnantTransactions meeting of the semester, complete w/ gifts & a guest visit from UCLAs Gabriel Rossman. Gosh I love these @uvalaw.bsky.social students!! One of many “Holy cow I get paid to do this?!?” moments
November 25, 2025 at 1:37 AM
And that’s a wrap! Our final #RepugnantTransactions meeting of the semester, complete w/ gifts & a guest visit from UCLAs Gabriel Rossman. Gosh I love these @uvalaw.bsky.social students!! One of many “Holy cow I get paid to do this?!?” moments
“This essay studies this trade using two case studies, one of a Nigerian leading legislator arrested in the UK for getting a kidney for his daughter and another on kidney demand in Iran where trade in organs is permitted.”
November 25, 2025 at 1:15 AM
“This essay studies this trade using two case studies, one of a Nigerian leading legislator arrested in the UK for getting a kidney for his daughter and another on kidney demand in Iran where trade in organs is permitted.”
How do caste, class, and national identity shape India’s decisions on reproductive labor? And why did concerns about “international shame” help drive the ban on commercial surrogacy? A nuanced conversation with Prabha Kotiswaran on the latest Taboo Trades.
🎧 www.buzzsprout.com/1227113/epis...
🎧 www.buzzsprout.com/1227113/epis...
Reproductive Labor in India with Prabha Kotiswaran - Taboo Trades
My guest today is Prabha Kotiswaran, a Professor of Law & Social Justice at King’s College London. Professor Kotiswaran’s main areas of research include criminal law, transnational criminal law, f...
www.buzzsprout.com
November 24, 2025 at 6:37 PM
How do caste, class, and national identity shape India’s decisions on reproductive labor? And why did concerns about “international shame” help drive the ban on commercial surrogacy? A nuanced conversation with Prabha Kotiswaran on the latest Taboo Trades.
🎧 www.buzzsprout.com/1227113/epis...
🎧 www.buzzsprout.com/1227113/epis...
In this week's Substack: private judges, the closure of the AMA Journal of Ethics, debates over libertarian eugenics, and new international plasma data from Peter Jaworski.
Read here:
Read here:
Taboo and Repugnant Roundup (Week of 11/25)
Thoughts on taboo trades, repugnant markets, and academia this week
open.substack.com
November 24, 2025 at 12:59 PM
In this week's Substack: private judges, the closure of the AMA Journal of Ethics, debates over libertarian eugenics, and new international plasma data from Peter Jaworski.
Read here:
Read here:
Reposted by Kim Krawiec
Ahem. "You can pry the end dash—which AI risks ruining—out of my cold, dead hands."
November 22, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Ahem. "You can pry the end dash—which AI risks ruining—out of my cold, dead hands."
Reposted by Kim Krawiec
"Stephanie Nelson was married for four months. The fight over the embryos she and her ex-husband created lasted for years."
She Saved for Years for IVF, Then Had to Fight Her Ex for the Embryos
Costly and emotionally taxing efforts to have children can be jeopardized when couples split.
www.wsj.com
November 23, 2025 at 1:22 AM
"Stephanie Nelson was married for four months. The fight over the embryos she and her ex-husband created lasted for years."
"They used a company that specialized in an obscure but vital component of the business: managing the large sums of money from parents to pay surrogates. [But] SEAM’s owner used the money—up to $16 million—to fund her recording studio, rap career and a vegan luxury clothing brand"
Surrogacy Is a Multibillion-Dollar Business. Sometimes the Money Goes Missing.
The growing industry has little regulation and many cases of financial abuse, including escrow funds taken to pay gambling debts or to buy bitcoin.
www.wsj.com
November 22, 2025 at 9:20 PM
"They used a company that specialized in an obscure but vital component of the business: managing the large sums of money from parents to pay surrogates. [But] SEAM’s owner used the money—up to $16 million—to fund her recording studio, rap career and a vegan luxury clothing brand"
Reposted by Kim Krawiec
I don’t think I would have believed it without seeing it, so here’s the relevant part of the EEOC memo: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
November 22, 2025 at 6:23 PM
I don’t think I would have believed it without seeing it, so here’s the relevant part of the EEOC memo: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
“A more recent part of the surge is elective IVF — still a small share of overall IVF cycles — in which people who could conceive naturally choose IVF to screen embryos for genetic traits linked to cancer risk, IQ, height and more.”
Elective IVF gains traction. Doctors have concerns.
Screening companies promise "generational health," but doctors say the science behind scoring embryos for complex conditions is shaky.
www.axios.com
November 22, 2025 at 4:13 PM
“A more recent part of the surge is elective IVF — still a small share of overall IVF cycles — in which people who could conceive naturally choose IVF to screen embryos for genetic traits linked to cancer risk, IQ, height and more.”
“He didn’t just tweak a few variables. It appears he invented the entire study.”
An MIT Student Awed Top Economists With His AI Study—Then It All Fell Apart
Aidan Toner-Rodgers shot to academic fame in a field hungry for new insights and revelatory research. But a computer scientist thought something seemed off.
www.wsj.com
November 22, 2025 at 12:06 PM
“He didn’t just tweak a few variables. It appears he invented the entire study.”
This week’s review spans the full terrain of repugnant markets: incentives for deceased donation, private-law innovation for intimate relationships, competing narratives about living donor transplantation in India, & a legally intricate surrogacy dispute.
Taboo and Repugnant Roundup (Week of 11/17)
Thoughts on taboo trades, repugnant markets, and academia this week
open.substack.com
November 21, 2025 at 12:34 PM
This week’s review spans the full terrain of repugnant markets: incentives for deceased donation, private-law innovation for intimate relationships, competing narratives about living donor transplantation in India, & a legally intricate surrogacy dispute.
India performs the world’s third-largest number of kidney transplants, overwhelmingly from living donors. Transplantation just published a heated exchange on whether that growth signals progress or peril. Context + links in the weekly roundup:
Taboo and Repugnant Roundup (Week of 11/17)
Thoughts on taboo trades, repugnant markets, and academia this week
open.substack.com
November 20, 2025 at 12:32 PM
India performs the world’s third-largest number of kidney transplants, overwhelmingly from living donors. Transplantation just published a heated exchange on whether that growth signals progress or peril. Context + links in the weekly roundup:
A NYT Magazine feature on a 68-year-old woman facing felony charges after forging documents for a surrogacy arrangement raises sharp questions about parental age limits, reproductive autonomy, and criminalization. More analysis in this week’s review:
open.substack.com/pub/kimberly...
open.substack.com/pub/kimberly...
Taboo and Repugnant Roundup (Week of 11/17)
Thoughts on taboo trades, repugnant markets, and academia this week
open.substack.com
November 20, 2025 at 1:36 AM
A NYT Magazine feature on a 68-year-old woman facing felony charges after forging documents for a surrogacy arrangement raises sharp questions about parental age limits, reproductive autonomy, and criminalization. More analysis in this week’s review:
open.substack.com/pub/kimberly...
open.substack.com/pub/kimberly...
A funeral-expense reimbursement proposal, new scholarship on cohabitation law, an international dispute over India’s transplant data m, & a dramatic NYT Magazine surrogacy story: this week’s roundup brings together key developments in contested exchanges.
Taboo and Repugnant Roundup (Week of 11/17)
Thoughts on taboo trades, repugnant markets, and academia this week
open.substack.com
November 19, 2025 at 12:30 PM
A funeral-expense reimbursement proposal, new scholarship on cohabitation law, an international dispute over India’s transplant data m, & a dramatic NYT Magazine surrogacy story: this week’s roundup brings together key developments in contested exchanges.
"According to the American Medical Association (AMA), 2020 marked the first time that fewer than half (49.1%) of physicians worked in doctor-owned practices since their tracking began. By 2022, that number had fallen further to 46.7%, down from 60% a decade earlier.”
November 18, 2025 at 1:32 PM
"According to the American Medical Association (AMA), 2020 marked the first time that fewer than half (49.1%) of physicians worked in doctor-owned practices since their tracking began. By 2022, that number had fallen further to 46.7%, down from 60% a decade earlier.”
Can reimbursing funeral expenses increase deceased donation without eroding ethical norms? A new paper by Chan & Sweat suggests yes—and quantifies the gains. This week’s roundup highlights the proposal and its implications for NOTA reform.
Taboo and Repugnant Roundup (Week of 11/17)
Thoughts on taboo trades, repugnant markets, and academia this week
open.substack.com
November 18, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Can reimbursing funeral expenses increase deceased donation without eroding ethical norms? A new paper by Chan & Sweat suggests yes—and quantifies the gains. This week’s roundup highlights the proposal and its implications for NOTA reform.
Jaworski on all things plasma
Plasma in the CANZUK region, and studies on the impact of compensated plasma on payday loan use and crime
Data update for Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK; interview with authors of studies showing plasma centers decrease use of payday loans in the U.S., and crime
open.substack.com
November 17, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Jaworski on all things plasma
New this week: funeral-expense reimbursement for organ donors, intimate-obligations doctrine, India’s LDT debates, and a striking case of assisted reproduction and criminal law. A roundup for scholars interested in markets, bodies, and the limits of commodification.
Taboo and Repugnant Roundup (Week of 11/17)
Thoughts on taboo trades, repugnant markets, and academia this week
open.substack.com
November 17, 2025 at 12:14 PM
New this week: funeral-expense reimbursement for organ donors, intimate-obligations doctrine, India’s LDT debates, and a striking case of assisted reproduction and criminal law. A roundup for scholars interested in markets, bodies, and the limits of commodification.