The Alabama supreme court recently ruled that the frozen embryos are children, and thus protected by the law. How are embryos created , how do people decide what to do with any remaining embryos, and who should make the decision?
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Reading is one of Rachel’s favorite things to do. She consumes books (audio and regular), TV shows, movies, and podcasts and loves to talk about all of them. In this blog, she shares her three favorite books of 2023: Bridge of Clay, Lessons in Chemistry, and The Covenant of Water - all centering on family.
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I got to chat with Wendy Sellers, from Puberty: the Wonder Years about working in sexual health education, teaching puberty, writing books, and what I hope for all kids going through puberty.
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Spring and Summer brought me many lessons on book publicity and marketing, what it all means, and why it’s necessary. I had to change my mindset - selling my book is not about promoting me! It’s about promoting the concepts in the book - ideas that will change how we explain human reproduction so that every person no matter how they are created or come to be in their family are valued equally.
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Browse Rachel’s five favorite books for youth about anatomy, modern human reproduction, and family - as listed at Shepherd, a new, engaging way to browse and find books you can’t wait to read.
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What an honor to do a Q & A for writer, editor and blogger Deborah Kalb. I shared lots of details about why I wrote the book, how I did research, what surprised me, and what I thought of the positive comments from Kirkus Reviews.
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"Roads to Family” is printed and ready for purchase. In this blog, author Rachel Ginocchio reflects on being a first time author, talks about where the idea for the book came from, and thanks all the contributors. Now families and teachers have an awesome resource for talking about modern human reproduction and family formation.
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Roads to Family, the book, is coming to stores and online distributors April 4, 2023! In this blog, Rachel takes a moment to recount the writing process, thank the amazing participants, and reflect that the book is, above all else, a love story.
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From laugh out loud moments, to wide smiles to the class, to smiles to myself - sex ed class can provide it all. Sometimes these moments happen outside of the classroom during class prepping; other times they happen during class. These moments are precious and it reminds us that even within the context of serious, intense topics, it’s worth pausing every now and then to recognize how humours humanity can be.
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Here are ten reasons why talking to high school students about insemination, IVF, donors, surrogates, and egg and sperm freezing is relevant. When we talk about fertility, it isn’t always about students’ future fertility, it’s about them better understanding the here and now - how they came to be in the world, or their classmates, or their neighbor, or even the personalities they learn about in the media.
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Can you imagine being a teenager, acting responsibly after a possible pregnancy scare, trying to pick up Plan Band, and your choices are either 1. Having to ask the pharmacist for the medication you need because it’s behind the checkout counter and you can’t just grab it and go, Or 2. Having to bringing a huge plastic box up to the counter so a clerk can “unlock” it before you can purchase it. Can we please free PlanB?
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Want medically accurate illustrations of the human reproductive system that don’t gross out youth, but instead sparks curiosity? Look no more. Roads To Family offers bodies of all different shapes, sizes and skin colors to help explain anatomy, puberty, and reproduction to students of all ages.
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Sex ed is violence prevention. It goes beyond helping victims know what to do when it happens; it tries to prevent that violence from happening to begin with.
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The responsibility of answering the age-old question “Where do babies come from?” should not be on fellow five year-old classmates. It should be the privilege of [hopefully] better equipped parents, caregivers and teachers. But when the explanation is still missing key components - donors, surrogates, insemination and IVF - the burden is falling on the kids who are donor conceived. As any five year-old can attest, that’s not fair!
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Mara Wilson gets at the heart of what sex education should really be all about - each and every adult taking responsibility for what we ask, what we expect, what we demand. As a society, we groom our kids, on what, where, when, and how to feel about their own sexuality and express it. Can we do better?
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Though this sex ed lesson is about George Clooney, it isn’t going to be what you think it is. So, get your mind out of the gutter. Though George Clooney is the sexiest man alive (twice!), what he teaches us about friendship - if we can get that right, we are off to a great start in any of our sexual or romantic relationships.
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Rachel’s letter to the editor of the NY Times gets published! In his essay “Children of Pornhub”, Nicholas Kristoff lists three ideas to prevent companies from profiting off of sexual violence. He forgets one important strategy - comprehensive sexuality education. Rachel writes a letter to make the suggestion, and it gets published!
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Meghan Markel, the Duchess of Sussex, talks openly about her miscarriage, and in doing so, reminds us all that talking about life’s sorrows is a really important part of the healing process. When we don’t connect with others over our grief and loss, embarrassment, guilt and shame take over our narratives. How do we use our own adult experiences to help kids not shoulder their own feelings of guilt and shame?
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Sex Ed should be about youth getting the information and skills they need before they engage in sexual activity. Knowing who you are, your values and beliefs, understanding what you like and don’t like and being able to communicate that, and showing respect and compassion for others is what should be at the heart of sex education. There is not magic ticket to getting here - it takes practice over time.
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Intersex conditions are not talked about a whole lot, but we can change that. Intersex Awareness Day gives us time to pause and celebrate the wondrous diversity of the human body.
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