Promising assisted reproductive technologies come with ethical, legal and social challenges – a developmental biologist and a bioethicist discuss IVF, abortion and the mice with two dads
Promising assisted reproductive technologies come with ethical, legal and social challenges – a developmental biologist and a bioethicist discuss IVF, abortion and the mice with two dads
Assisted reproductive technologies are medical procedures that help people experiencing difficulty having or an inability to have biological children of their own. From in vitro fertilization to genetic screening to creation of viable eggs from the skin cells of two male mice, each new development speaks to the potential of reproductive technologies to expand access to the experience of pregnancy.
Translating advances from the lab to the clinic, however, comes with challenges that go far beyond the purely technical.
Conversations around the ethics and implications of cutting-edge research often happen after the fact, when the science and technology have advanced beyond the point at which open dialogue could best protect affected groups. In the spirit of starting such cross-discipline conversations earlier, we invited developmental biologist Keith Latham of Michigan State University and bioethicist Mary Faith Marshall of the University of Virginia to discuss the ethical and technological potential of in vitro gametogenesis and assisted reproductive technology post-Roe.
How new are the ethical considerations raised by assisted reproductive technologies?
Keith
Every new technology raises many of the same questions, and likely new ones. On the safety and risk-benefit side of the ethical conversation, there’s nothing here that we haven’t dealt with since the 1970s with other reproductive technologies. But it’s important to keep asking questions, because the benefits are hugely dependent on the success rate. There are potential biological costs, but also possible social costs, financial costs, societal costs and many others.
Mary Faith
It’s probably been that way even longer. One of my mentors, Joseph Francis Fletcher, a pioneering bioethicist and Episcopal priest, wrote a book called “Morals and Medicine” in 1954. It was the first non-Roman Catholic treatment of bioethics. And he raised a lot of these issues there, including the technological imperative – the idea that because we can develop the technology to do something, we therefore should develop it.
Fletcher also said that the use of artifice, or human-made creations, is supremely human. That’s what we do: We figure out how things work and we develop new technologies like vaccines and heart-lung machines based on evolving scientific knowledge.
I think that in most cases, scientists should be involved in thinking about the implications of their work. But often, researchers focus more on the direct applications of their work than the potential indirect consequences.
Given the evolution of assisted reproductive technology, and the fact that its evolution is going to continue, I think one of the central questions to consider is, what are the goals of developing it? For assisted reproduction, it’s to help infertile people and people in nontraditional relationships have children.
What are some recent developments in the field of assisted reproductive technology?
Keith
One recent advance in assisted reproductive technology is the expansion of pre-implantation genetic testing methods, particularly DNA sequencing. Many genes come in different variants, or alleles, that can be inherited from each parent. Providers can determine whether an embryo bears a “bad” allele that may increase the risk of certain diseases and select embryos with “healthy” alleles.
Genetic screening raises several ethical concerns. For example, the parents’ genetic profiles could be unwillingly inferred from that of the embryo. This possibility may deter prospective parents from having children, and such knowledge may also have potential effects on any future child. The cost of screening and potential need for additional cycles of IVF may also increase disparities.
There are also considerations about the accuracy of screening predictions without accounting for environmental effects, and what level of genetic risk is “serious” enough for an embryo to be excluded. More extensive screening also raises concerns about possible misuse for purposes other than disease prevention, such as production of “designer babies.”
In vitro gametogenesis involves making egg or sperm cells from other adult cells in the body.
At a genome-editing conference in March 2023, researchers announced that they were able to delete and duplicate whole chromosomes from the skin cells of male mice to make eggs. This method is one potential way to make eggs that do not carry genetic abnormalities.
They were very upfront that this was done at 1% efficiency in mice, which could be lower in humans. That means something bad happened to 99% of the embryos. The biological world is not typically binary, so a portion of that surviving 1% could still be abnormal. Just because the mice survived doesn’t mean they’re OK. I would say at this point, it would be unethical to try this on people.
As with some forms of genetic screening, using this technique to reduce the risk of one disease could inadvertently increase the risk of another. Determining that it is absolutely safe to duplicate a chromosome would require knowing every allele of every gene on that chromosome, and what each allele could do to the health of a person. That’s a pretty tall order, as that could involve identifying hundreds to thousands of genes, and the effects of all their variants may not be known.
Mary Faith
That raises the issue of efficacy and costs to yet another order of magnitude.
Keith
Genome editing with CRISPR technology in people carries similar concerns. Because of potential limitations in how precise the technology can be, it may be difficult for researchers to say they are absolutely 100% certain there won’t be off-target changes in the genome. Proceeding without that full knowledge could be risky.
But that’s where bioethicists need to come into play. Researchers don’t know what the full risk is, so how do you make that risk-benefit calculation?
Mary Faith
There’s the option of a voluntary global moratorium on using these technologies on human embryos. But somebody somewhere is still going to do it, because the technology is just sitting there, waiting to be moved forward.
How will the legal landscape affect the development and implementation of assisted reproductive technologies?
Mary Faith
Any research that involves human embryos is in some ways politicized. Not only because the government provides funding to the basic science labs that conduct this research, but because of the wide array of beliefs that members of the public at large have about when life begins or what personhood means.
The Dobbs decision, which overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, has implications for assisted reproduction and beyond. Most people who are pregnant don’t even know they’re pregnant at the earliest stages, and somewhere around 60% of those pregnancies end naturally because of genetic aberrations. Between 1973 and 2005, over 400 women were arrested for miscarriage in the U.S., and I think that number is going to grow. The implications for reproductive health care, and for assisted reproduction in the future, are challenging and frightening.
What will abortion restrictions mean for people who have multiple-gestation pregnancies, in which they carry more than one embryo at the same time? In order to have one healthy child born from that process, the other embryos often need to be removed so they don’t all die. In the past 40 years, the number of twin births doubled and triplet and higher-order births quadrupled, primarily because of fertility treatments.
IVF may transfer one, two, or sometimes three embryos at a time. The cost of care for preterm birth, which is one possible outcome of multiple-gestation pregnancies, can be high. That’s in addition to the cost of delivery. IVF clinics are increasingly transferring just one embryo to mitigate such concerns.
The life-at-conception bills that have been put forth in some U.S. state legislatures and Congress may contain language claiming they are not meant to prevent IVF. But the language of the bills could be extended to affect procedures such as IVF with pre-implantation genetic testing to detect chromosomal abnormalities, particularly when single-embryo transfer is the goal. Pre-implantation genetic testing has been increasing, with one study estimating that over 40% of all IVF cycles in the U.S. in 2018 involved genetic screening.
Could life-at-conception bills criminalize clinics that don’t transfer embryos known to be genetically abnormal? Freezing genetically abnormal embryos could avoid destroying them, but that raises questions of, to what end? Who would pay for the storage, and who would be responsible for those embryos?
How can we determine whether the risks outweigh the benefits when so much is unknown?
Keith
Conducting studies in animal models is an important first step. In some cases, it either hasn’t been done or hasn’t been done extensively. Even with animal studies, you have to recognize that mice, rabbits and monkeys are not human. Animal models may reduce some risks before a technology is used in people, but they won’t eliminate all risks, because of biological differences between species.
The death of Jesse Gelsinger, who was a participant in a gene therapy clinical trial in 1999, led to a halt in all gene therapy clinical trials in the U.S. for a time. When the Food and Drug Administration investigated what went wrong, they found huge numbers of adverse events in both humans and animals that should have been reported to the advisory committee but weren’t. Notably, the principal investigator of the trial was also the primary shareholder of the biotech company that made the drug being tested. That raises questions about the reality of oversight.
I think something like that earlier NIH advisory committee but for reproductive technologies would still be advisable. But researchers, policymakers and regulators need to learn from the lessons of the past to try to ensure that – especially in early-phase research – we’re very thoughtful about the potential risks and that research participants really understand what the implications are for participation in research. That would be one model for translating research from the animal into the human.
The FDA approved a gene therapy for a form of congenital vision loss in 2017. The child in this photo, then 8, first received gene therapy at age 4. Bill West/AP Photo
Keith
A process to make sure that the people conducting studies don’t have a conflict of interest, like having the potential to commercially profit from the technology, would be useful.
Caution, consensus and cooperation should not take second place to profit motives. Altering the human genome in a way that allows human-made genetic changes to be propagated throughout the population has a potential to alter the genetics of the human species as a whole.
Mary Faith
That raises the question of how long it will take for long-term effects to show. It’s one thing for an implanted egg not to survive. But how long will it take to know whether there are effects that aren’t obvious at birth?
Keith
We’re still collecting long-term outcome data for people born using different reproductive technologies. So far there have been no obviously horrible consequences. But some abnormalities could take decades to manifest, and there are many variables to contend with.
One can arguably say that there’s substantial good in helping couples have babies. There can be a benefit to their emotional well-being, and reproduction is a natural part of human health and biology. And a lot of really smart, dedicated people are putting a lot of energy into making sure that the risks are minimized. We can also look to some of the practices and approaches to oversight that have been used over the past several decades.
Mary Faith
And thinking about international guidelines, such as from the Council for International Medical Science and other groups, could provide guidance on protecting human research subjects.
Keith
You hate to advocate for a world where the automatic response to anything new is “no, don’t do that.” My response is, “Show me it’s safe before you do it.” I don’t think that’s unreasonable.
Some people have a view that scientists don’t think about the ethics of research and what’s right and wrong, advisable or inadvisable. But we do think about it. I co-direct a research training program that includes teaching scientists how to responsibly and ethically conduct research, including speakers who specifically address the ethics of reproductive technologies. It is valuable to have a dialogue between scientists and ethicists, because ethicists will often think about things from a different perspective.
As people go through their scientific careers and see new technologies unfold over time, these discussions can help them develop a deeper appreciation and understanding of the broader impact of their research. It becomes our job to make sure that each generation of scientists is motivated to think about these things.
Mary Faith
It’s also really important to include stakeholders – people who are nonscientists, people who experience barriers to reproduction and people who are opposed to the idea – so they have a voice at the table as well. That’s how you get good policies, right? You have everyone who should be at the table, at the table.
But another threat remains less recognized: This collapse could pose a threat to the stability of financial markets well beyond the scope of the fires.
It’s been widely accepted for more than a decade that humanity has three choices when it comes to responding to climate risks: adapt, abate or suffer. As an expert in economics and the environment, I know that some degree of suffering is inevitable — after all, humans have already raised the average global temperature by 1.6 degrees Celsius, or 2.9 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s why it’s so important to have functioning insurance markets.
While insurance companies are often cast as villains, when the system works well, insurers play an important role in improving social welfare. When an insurer sets premiums that accurately reflect and communicate risk — what economists call “actuarially fair insurance” — that helps people share risk efficiently, leaving every individual safer and society better off.
But the scale and intensity of the Southern California fires — linked in part to climate change, including record-high global temperatures in 2023 and again in 2024 — has brought a big problem into focus: In a world impacted by increasing climate risk, traditional insurance models no longer apply.
How climate change broke insurance
Historically, the insurance system has worked by relying on experts who study records of past events to estimate how likely it is that a covered event might happen. They then use this information to determine how much to charge a given policyholder. This is called “pricing the risk.”
Many California wildfire survivors face insurance struggles, as this ABC News report shows.
When Americans try to borrow money to buy a home, they expect that mortgage lenders will make them purchase and maintain a certain level of homeowners insurance coverage, even if they chose to self-insure against unlikely additional losses. But thanks to climate change, risks are increasingly difficult to measure, and costs are increasingly catastrophic. It seems clear to me that a new paradigm is needed.
California provided the beginnings of such a paradigm with its Fair Access to Insurance program, known as FAIR. When it was created in 1968, its authors expected that it would provide insurance coverage for the few owners who were unable to get normal policies because they faced special risks from exposure to unusual weather and local climates.
But the program’s coverage is capped at US$500,000 per property – well below the losses that thousands of Los Angeles residents are experiencing right now. Total losses from the wildfires’ first week alone are estimated to exceed $250 billion.
How insurance could break the economy
This state of affairs isn’t just dangerous for homeowners and communities — it could create widespread financial instability. And it’s not just me making this point. For the past several years, central bankers at home and abroad have raised similar concerns. So let’s talk about the risks of large-scale financial contagion.
In that event, the value of opaque bundles of real estate derivatives collapsed from artificial and unsustainable highs, leaving millions of mortgages around the U.S. “underwater.” These properties were no longer valued above owners’ mortgage liabilities, so their best choice was simply to walk away from the obligation to make their monthly payments.
Forewarned by that experience, the U.S. Federal Reserve Board wrote in 2020 that “features of climate change can also increase financial system vulnerabilities.” The central bank noted that uncertainty and disagreement about climate risks can lead to sudden declines in asset values, leaving people and businesses vulnerable.
At that time, the Fed had a specific climate-based example of a not-implausible contagion in mind – global risks from sudden large increases in global sea level rise over something like 20 years. A collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could create such an event, and coastlines around the world would not have enough time to adapt.
In a 2020 press conference, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell discusses climate change and financial stability.
The Fed now has another scenario to consider – one that’s not hypothetical.
We will now see if the plans borne of those stress tests can work in the face of enormous wildfires burning throughout an urban area that’s also a financial, cultural and entertainment center of the world.
theconversation.com – Vanessa Crossgrove Fry, Associate Research Faculty/Interim Director, Boise State University – 2025-01-21 07:41:00
Social Border Grill delivers food as part of World Central Kitchen relief efforts at an Eaton Fire temporary shelter in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 9, 2025. Kirby Lee/Getty Images
Los Angeles is reeling after fires of historic proportions raced through many communities in January 2025, destroying thousands of homes. The Conversation U.S. asked Vanessa Crossgrove Fry, an associate research professor and director of the Idaho Policy Institute at Boise State University, and an expert on sustainable management and nonprofit administration, to explain what role nonprofits can play in staving off disasters and dealing with them when and after they occur.
What’s the role of nonprofits when disasters strike?
They play a critical role by complementing government efforts and filling gaps in immediate and long-term recovery needs.
Collaboration is a hallmark of how nonprofits respond to disasters. These organizations often work alongside government agencies and private sector partners in coordinated efforts. This approach ensures that aid is distributed efficiently, directing resources where they are needed most.
Often, national groups lead efforts to establish emergency shelters, distribute food and water, and offer mental health support. In a best-case scenario, these large organizations partner with local nonprofits that are uniquely positioned to mobilize quickly, leveraging their deep understanding of community needs and established trust with residents.
In some disasters, especially large ones like the Lahaina, Hawaii, fire in 2023, nonprofits also act as coordinators. They make sure that volunteers, donations and other resources flow to people who need help.
Nonprofits’ flexibility and community-based networks enable them to respond to local challenges, such as supporting displaced families or addressing unmet needs in underserved areas. Beyond immediate relief, many nonprofits remain involved in long-term recovery efforts, assisting with rebuilding homes, restoring livelihoods and fostering community resilience.
While surrounded by food donations, Evangeline Balintona, left, and her sister Elsie Rosales, sit inside a hotel-condo after they both lost homes in Lahaina to the wildfire, Sept. 1, 2023, in Kahana, Hawaii. AP Photo/Marco Garcia
In fire-prone regions like the Los Angeles foothills, organizations often focus on educating the public, helping residents understand fire risks and creating evacuation plans. They also implement fire mitigation strategies, such as spreading awareness about the importance of clearing brush and replacing wooden roofs.
With CERT training, a local fire department might equip volunteers to prepare for the hazards they’re likely to face in their communities. That kind of exercise empowers them with essential disaster-response skills, including fire safety and light search and rescue know-how. During Sound the Alarm events, smoke detectors are installed in vulnerable communities and residents get help creating evacuation plans.
Partnerships with government agencies, private companies and other nonprofits should ideally be in place before a disaster occurs to ensure a coordinated response when the time comes.
For example, nonprofits may establish agreements about setting up emergency shelters or accessing and distributing food supplies. They also build networks to ensure vulnerable populations – such as low-income residents, people experiencing homelessness, and those with disabilities – are included in disaster planning and response efforts.
Other roles include advocating for more funding for disaster preparedness and infrastructure, like wildfire-resistant construction or community-wide firebreaks – areas of cleared vegetation.
In some cases, nonprofits may help coordinate the use of government resources. For instance, Idaho Department of Insurance Director Dean Cameron recently drafted a bill that’s pending in the Idaho Legislature that would provide funding for homeowners to make fire mitigation upgrades on their property.
Additionally, nonprofits often develop detailed contingency plans for their own operations so they can continue to deliver services during a crisis.
Through these proactive measures, nonprofits help communities prepare for the worst while fostering resilience that can temper the long-term impacts of disasters.
What does the situation in LA have in common with what happens in Idaho?
Los Angeles and Idaho might seem worlds apart, but when it comes to handling disasters like wildfires, they face surprisingly similar challenges.
Both places grapple with dry seasons, rising temperatures and increasing invasive vegetation that amplify wildfire risks. Climate change is exacerbating these conditions, making fires more frequent and intense.
In Los Angeles, urban sprawl has expanded development into fire-prone areas, known as the wildland-urban interface. Similarly, Idaho has seen increased development in the wildland-urban interface surrounding Boise – where the population is surging.
This type of growth poses significant risks to both homes and lives as seen in Idaho’s 2016 Table Rock Fire and the more recent 2024 Valley Fire.
In addition, wildfires in Idaho’s forested and rural areas put not only people and infrastructure at risk, but can impact valuable grazing land, as occurred in the 2024 Wapiti Fire.
In both regions, balancing the demand for housing with the need for fire-resilient planning and mitigation measures is a critical challenge.
Another shared concern for nonprofits in Idaho and California is ensuring that vulnerable populations receive enough support during and after disasters. In both urban and rural settings, people experiencing homelessness, low-income families, and those in remote areas may have a lot of trouble evacuating, accessing resources and rebuilding after disasters.
What are some common misconceptions about nonprofits in disasters?
Many people tend to think that nonprofits only provide immediate relief, such as food, shelter or medical care. While these services are critical in the early stages of a disaster, many nonprofits also focus on long-term recovery and rebuilding efforts.
Nonprofits may help communities rebuild homes, restore livelihoods or address emotional trauma months – or even years – after a disaster occurs.
There is also a tendency to overlook the role of local nonprofits. High-profile national organizations often command the public’s attention, but local nonprofits are often better positioned to address community-specific needs and work directly with vulnerable populations.
These misunderstandings can lead to the underfunding – and underappreciation – of local nonprofits.
Should people still donate to established organizations?
There are more ways to give to people experiencing a crisis than there used to be.
You might hesitate to donate to large nonprofits after a big disaster like the Los Angeles fires, for several reasons. Maybe you’re concerned about transparency or the group’s effectiveness. It might feel less personal to you than giving money, say, to a GoFundMe campaign.
I think that people should still consider donating to large and established organizations, but I also believe that it’s important to do so thoughtfully. Large nonprofits, such as the American Red Cross or Salvation Army, often have the infrastructure, expertise and logistical capacity to mobilize quickly and scale their operations to address disasters effectively.
These organizations also maintain established relationships with government agencies, local nonprofits and international partners. Those networks facilitate coordinated responses that smaller or newer groups might struggle to achieve.
However, the emergence of giving options, such as crowdfunding platforms, grassroots campaigns and community-based nonprofits, has expanded opportunities for individuals to direct their support to specific causes or populations. These avenues can make a big difference, particularly when donors want to address local or niche needs. Still, newer or less established groups may lack transparency or accountability.
Established organizations tend to have robust financial oversight and accountability systems in place. They are often better equipped to address not only immediate relief needs but also long-term recovery efforts, which smaller or informal groups may not have the capacity to support.
Ultimately, the choice depends on your own priorities. Do you want to support immediate relief, contribute to systemic solutions or help a specific community?
By donating to both large organizations and local efforts alike, you can maximize your impact and help ensure everyone in a community gets support. And that’s important, especially after a disaster as big as the Los Angeles wildfires.
Designed by Simone Legno, the mascot with big blue eyes and blue hair, and rosary beads around her neck, represents a Catholic pilgrim. She is dressed in pilgrimage garments that were standard attire throughout the centuries. Her badge, the Pilgrimage of Hope, identifies the 2025 Jubilee. It shows blue, green, yellow and red figures embracing a cross that ends in an anchor at the base, a symbol of hope. The figures form an outline of a ship sailing over the waves, evoking images of travel.
I have long been interested in the central role played by pilgrimage in many faith traditions, culminating in an exhibition and book, “Pilgrimage and Faith: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam” in 2010. Luce brings a contemporary perspective to the time-honored Christian pilgrimage tradition.
Pilgrimage symbols
The symbols that Luce carries serve as a reminder of the origins of Christian pilgrimage, which began with visits to the Holy Land, the place where Christ lived his life.
This pilgrimage was documented by a person who came to be known as the Anonymous Pilgrim of Bordeaux. He wrote in his diary “The Bordeaux Pilgrim” in 333 about his trip to the Holy Land when the basilica of the Holy Sepulcher, the site where Jesus was buried and is believed to have resurrected, was still under construction.
Luce carries symbols that have been associated with pilgrimage in Europe since the 12th century, particularly those connected to the shrine of St. James in northwestern Spain.
This Holy Land pilgrimage built a tradition of Christians not just visiting the holy sites but also returning with tangible souvenirs, such as a stone from the Holy Land, water from a well, or even a piece of cloth or a statue that touched Christ’s tomb. A sixth-century painted box now in the Vatican contains bits of soil and stones as souvenirs of places in the Holy Land.
St. James, depicted as a pilgrim on a stained-glass window at the monastery of Wettingen, Switzerland. Virginia Raguin, CC BY
The pilgrimage to honor St. James, one of Christ’s apostles, whose tomb was believed to have been found in northwestern Spain, became popular in the early 12th century. The pilgrimage route was called the Way of St. James, Camino de Santiago de Compostela. The pilgrimage guided the faithful through several routes across Spain, France and Portugal, culminating in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, in the north of Spain.
The itinerary of the journey, written in 1137 by an anonymous Frenchman, names natural landmarks, local customs and specific churches built to honor different saints. Along this route flowed artistic, economic and cultural exchanges. As was customary, pilgrims who returned after visiting St. James’ tomb adopted an emblem. Since the shrine was close to the sea, James’ symbol became a scallop shell that pilgrims wore to demonstrate their achievement.
Pilgrims were proud of these voyages that entailed much physical hardship as well as devotion. In the church of Santa Prassede, Rome, Giovanni de Montpoli, who describes his trade as preparing medicines, commissioned a 13th-century tomb slab showing himself as a pilgrim. He is dressed in a pilgrim’s fur overcoat to repel rain and retain warmth. He carries a staff and wears a wallet slung over his shoulder. A scallop shell adorning his broad-brimmed hat indicates that he had traveled to Compostela.
The popularity of the pilgrimage to St. James persisted through the Renaissance, supported by pilgrimage fraternities that helped people find companions for the journey and stay connected with each other after they returned. Sometimes subgroups of the fraternity even sponsored pilgrimage-related art such as a stained-glass window.
Evidence of such activities is seen in the monastery of Wettingen, near Zurich in Switzerland. St. James is depicted as a pilgrim in a stained-glass window dated 1522, donated by a Hans Hünegger and Regina von Sur. He wears a cloak and a hat decorated with pilgrim badges.
Pilgrim badges
St. Louis of France wears scallop shell pilgrim emblems, Sainte-Clotilde, Paris, 1855. Virginia Raguin, CC BY
By the middle decades of the 12th century, metal pilgrim badges were produced at low costs. They were soon available at shrines throughout Europe. Each pilgrimage location had its own distinctive badge.
Santiago’s scallop shell remained a universal pilgrim emblem over the centuries. A 19th-century stained-glass window in the church of Sainte-Clotilde in Paris shows 13th-century French King Louis IX – the only French monarch to be named a saint – with scallop shells on his cloak, even though his pilgrimage was to Jerusalem, not the shrine of Santiago.
Tomb slab of Giovanni de Montpoli, late 13th century, church of Santa Prassede, Rome. Virginia Raguin, CC BY
Sometimes the Supper at Emmaus, when Christ met two disciples after his resurrection, was depicted showing the disciples as contemporary pilgrims.
One of the most memorable examples is Caravaggio’s painting from 1601, in the National Gallery in London, showing an astonished apostle wearing a scallop shell on his vest.
Luce, the pilgrim
Luce continues, as well as transforms, these traditions. In her large eyes gleam two scallop shells that reflect this thousand-year-old symbol. Like Giovanni de Montpoli in Rome, she wears a coat that shields her from the elements and she carries a staff. The yellow of the cloak references the color of the flag of Vatican City.
Like the 16th-century Swiss image of St. James, she wears a pilgrimage badge, this one proclaiming the Pilgrimage of Hope of the 2025 Jubilee. Her muddy boots indicate outdoor hiking, with which any young person can identify. She is depicted as female, representing all people, not just women.
Drawn in a contemporary and globally popular style, she suggests an openness to new encounters across the world.
