March
21, 2003 Reproductive
Technologies Panel Set for March 27
Surrogacy, sex selection,
test-tube babies, cloning—illuminating the moral, ethical,
and legal questions surrounding these and other new and developing
reproductive technologies will be the task of a distinguished
panel of experts when the Weissman Center series The Political
Embryo: Reconceiving Human Reproduction continues with “Who
Decides? Reproductive Technologies and the Law.” The panel
discussion, set for Thursday, March 27, at 7:30 pm in Gamble Auditorium
and to be moderated by Associate Professor of Chemistry Sean Decatur,
is part of a semester-long series featuring a wide-ranging discussion
that brings together leading scientists, ethicists, legal experts,
science writers, and artists for discussions about existing and
emerging human reproductive technologies.
The panelists represent a range of entry points in the ongoing
debate over the science of human reproduction. Science historian
Daniel Kevles “will help paint the historical context,”
says Decatur. “As a member of the President’s Council
on Bioethics, Rebecca Dresser will be able to lend insight into
what’s going on in the current political arena. And, as
an ethicist, Adrienne Asch will help us see the bigger picture
and the ways that we can navigate through the ethical dilemmas
posed by these developing technologies.” Among the topics
around which Decatur hopes to spark discussion is his primary
concern: “What are the ways that citizens can and should
be involved in this decision-making process?”
Echoing that concern, Karen Remmler, codirector of the Weissman
Center, elaborates on the overarching purpose of the Political
Embryo series. “We want people to be able to make informed
decisions about the regulation and application of these new technologies
and to be able to participate in public policy. It’s not
about a debate for or against. It’s about the complexity
of the issues and about bringing in various perspectives and raising
questions. How do we as citizens express our opinion about what
we think should be done here?”
The Panelists
Daniel J. Kevles is Stanley Woodward Professor of History
at Yale University. Kevles’s publications on the history
of genetics, health care, prenatal testing, and surrogacy have
won numerous awards and praise. He is the author of Inventing
America: A History of the United States (W.W. Norton); The
Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Character (W.
W. Norton); The Code of Codes: Scientific and Social Issues
in the Human Genome Project (Harvard University Press); In
the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity
(Harvard University Press); and The Physicists: The
History of a Scientific Community in Modern America (Alfred
A. Knopf). Kevles has several works in progress, including an
interpretive history of science and technology in the twentieth
century and a college history of the United States, as well as
The Contested Earth: From Walden Pond to Global Warming.
Adrienne Asch is Henry R. Luce Professor of Biology,
Ethics, and the Politics of Human Reproduction at Wellesley College,
where she teaches such courses as Introduction to Reproductive
Issues; Multidisciplinary Approaches to Abortion; Ethical and
Social Issues in Genetics; Women and Motherhood; and Ethical and
Policy Issues in Reproduction, and has cotaught Literature and
Medicine. Asch has served on the board of the Boston Women’s
Health Book Collective and as a member of the Ethics Committee
for Boston’s Faulkner Center for Reproductive Medicine;
the Human Genetics Committee of the Council for Responsible Genetics;
and the Ethics Advisory Group of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption
Institute. She is working on a book dealing with the ethical,
social, and psychological issues in assisted reproduction.
Rebecca Susan Dresser is Daniel Noyes Kirby Professor
of Law at Washington University School of Law and professor of
ethics in medicine at Washington University School of Medicine.
Dresser has written extensively on bioethical issues, and she
serves on the editorial boards of IRB: Ethics and Human Research
and the American Journal of Bioethics. Her book, When
Science Offers Salvation: Patient Advocacy and Research Ethics,
was published in 2001. She is also a coauthor of The Human
Use of Animals: Case Studies in Ethical Choice (1998) and
Law and Bioethics: Cases, Materials, and Problems (2003).
The
counter is
768
|
