The iDeas Lab team is hard at work on playing god? Season 3, but we have some special things to share with you in the meantime. Listen for a preview of what’s coming next in the feed.

And we’re opening a voicemail box! Call us at 410-417-9860 to tell us your questions, reactions, and stories. We look forward to hearing from you.

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.