Jottings on science, religion, technology, pop culture and faith from the Antipodes.
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Flying visit to Wellington yesterday for an Interchurch Bioethics Council meeting.
Nice to be back in the Heavenly City, if only for 10 hours or so. Stimulating meeting too.
More resources at: Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand // Media: Ecumenical & Interchurch - Interchurch Bioethics Council Resources.
Recent UK legislation relating to embryology included provision of the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos (which combine human and animal genetic material) for therapeutic research purposes. (See UK parliament backs human-animal embryo research | HEALTH | NEWS | tvnz.co.nz)
What do you think?
Related links:
Two different points of view on the UK embryology bill:
Who’s afraid of a synthetic human? | John Harris - Times Online
Interesting short article commenting on research presented at the recent American Association for the Advancement of Science conference which identifies religion as far more significant a factor in the US than in Europe. In part, it’s due to the conflation of nanotechnology with other things like biotechnology and the sense the people are ‘playing God’ when seeking to manipulate a nano-scale world.
The New Zealand Bioethics Conference: Wellbeing and Technology last weekend was nice and stimulating. Some good plenary sessions, entertaining (and somewhat disturbing) public lectures, a wide variety of papers, and interesting people. These included:
I can’t remember whether I’ve posted these links before (a quick search of the blog says not), but in a week’s time I’ll just back from Dunedin having attended the New Zealand Bioethics Conference: Wellbeing and Technology so it seemed apt to note them. There’s a session on transhumanism on the last day of the conference so I’ll be interested to see what the perspectives offered there include.
New Scientist magazine had a special focus on ‘death’ back in October (see Special Report on Death - New Scientist) with a bit in it on transhumanist aspirations to overcome death (or at least, short life) - Death special: The plan for eternal life - being-human - 13 October 2007 - New Scientist (including a link to the video YouTube - Quest for immortality featuring various transhumanists and ‘techno-progressives’).
Other related links:
Firstly, a short summary piece from PBS Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly on recent developments in biotechnology and whether they change the ethical landscape. See Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . PERSPECTIVES . Bioethics Update . January 25, 2008 | PBS
And secondly, Rod Benson (who produces the weekly summary RELIGION & ETHICS AUSTRALIA) also has a daily blog going over at Ethics Update: News, opinion and rumour on all manner of ethical, political and religious issues.
The “People Power for the Third Millennium: Technology, Democracy and Human Rights” symposia from The Centre for Bioethics & Public Policy in the UK looks interesting, though being held in London means I’m hoping they’ll be something published out of them for a wider audience.
The first symposium, “Robots & Rights: Will artificial intelligence change the meaning of human rights?”, was a couple of days ago, and other upcoming topics include:
I’ve been wondering whether South African athlete Oscar Pistorius, who runs with carbon-fibre prosthetic legs, would be competing at the Beijing Olympics ever since I saw a news article about him a year to eighteen months ago. It appears now that he won’t be there, even if he makes the qualifying times.
See: Pistorius’s unfair advantage keeps him out of Olympics | Athletics | Guardian Unlimited Sport
Hat tip to Andii over at Nouslife: Pistorius’s unfair advantage -the cyborg prosthete.
It’s an interesting question - how much enhancement should an athlete be allowed? Obviously, things like spectacles and contact lenses are allowed, as are various operations to fix/improve weak spots in a physique (e.g. replacing broken tendons) or corrective eye surgery. But something like taking performance-enhancing drugs or blood-doping isn’t. It seems like it’s going to get harder to differentiate between therapy/enhancement in sport as time goes on.
NPR ran a programme on Pistorius and enhancement in sport back in May last year. You can listen to it at: NPR : Prosthetics in Sports: Disability or Advantage?
A few interrelated things in the past week or so about genetic testing, discrimination and Alzheimer’s.
Firstly, PBS carried this article (and video) about the ethics of testing for Alzheimer’s - Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . COVER . Alzheimer’s Testing . December 14, 2007 | PBS.
Which, in turn, relates to this part of Radio NZ’s Nine to Noon programme on Thursday that looked at genetic discrimination in insurance cover - MP3 here.
And then this from Terry Pratchett, who notes that while he’s been diagnosed with very rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s people note that he’s not dead yet. (Are there eulogies on the net already?) - Discworld News © PJSM Prints
I long time ago I flatted with a postgrad geneticist-microbiologist who had the crazy idea of trying to make bioluminescent bananas (so they could be picked in the dark 
). Apparently, bananas are the wrong type of plant for the bioluminescent symbiote he wanted to use, though potatoes would have worked.
Now I see this - SKorean Scientists Clone Cats That Glow: Wired News - AP News - and I wonder, what ever happened to my old flatmate?
Various books on the go at the moment. Some good, some not so. Random comments follow.
“Metal Swarm” by Kevin J. Anderson (Book 6(!) in the “The Saga of Seven Suns” series). Should be right up my alley - ancient powerful alien races continue ancient wars while plucky humans (with strange alien sometime allies) strive to survive. It’s Babylon 5 all over again - even down to the human politics and civil war. But it reads really badly - too many characters to follow and a million very short chapters focusing on different characters means it feels like watching a TV where someone’s changing the channel every 10 seconds. No time for empathy to develop with any of the characters, and by now it feels like it’s just going through the motions. On a plus side you can skip whole chapters and not miss much of the plot. Undecided on whether I’ll read the next book.
“The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief” by Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. Recommended to me by a non-scientist/non-theologian (in the professional sense) so I’ve picked it up from the library. As usual I’ve started reading from the back, in this case the first few pages of the appendix on bioethics which gives some nice summaries of that field. (See also: Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . PROFILE . DR. FRANCIS COLLINS . July 21, 2006 | PBS)
“Saturnalia: A Marcus Didius Falco Novel” by Lindsey Davis. Falco novels are like a comfortable old pair of slippers for me. When I don’t feel like reading anything too heavy then I get the next one out of the library. I didn’t really like the last one (“See Delphi and Die”), but you know what you’re getting and I’ve always been interested in Ancient Rome. “Saturnalia” improved on the last book, but still missed something of the dramatic tension present in the early novels. (Related information: Second-born (9) has been devouring the children’s equivalent of the Falco novels - Caroline Lawrence’s “Roman Mysteries” - effectively a ‘Famous Five in Ancient Rome’)-
“Practical Theology: On Earth As It Is in Heaven” by Terry A. Veling. Because it was spoken highly of over at Simply Simon: Practicing theology and Simply Simon: Practicing theology II.
“The Blackwell Reader in Pastoral and Practical Theology (Blackwell Readings in Modern Theology)” by John Patton. Because it was near the Veling book on the shelf in the GSC library, and because it covers a wide range of perspectives on the field.
“Engaging the Online Learner: Activities and Resources for Creative Instruction (Online Teaching and Learning Series (OTL))” by Rita-Marie Conrad and J. Ana Donaldson. A book that collects a large number of different online learning examples and is really useful for showing you what other people have down and why, and also for helping design your own activities and assessements.
Scott Prather, over at swords to plowshares: Major bio-medical breakthrough highlights the recent news of researchers developing techniques that look useful for creating stem cells for therapies from a non-embryonic source. (More details at: Researchers Turn Skin Cells Into Stem Cells — Vogel 2007 (1120): 1 — ScienceNOW).
Scott notes that Lutheran bioethicist, Ted Peters, thinks that even if the controversial nature of using embryonic material as a source of stem cells is eliminated by this process the public controversy won’t die down. Indeed, the discussions over what exactly defines personhood, and possibly the ’sacred’ nature of DNA will continue, I think.
This is the simply the case of different views of what being human and what nature is are played out in the public arena. For example,
It seems conceivable that the intensity of current controversies around genetically modified crops and foods arises in part from the fact that, in their regulation in the public domain, conflicting ontologies of the person are making themselves felt in the politics of everyday life.[1]
[1] Celia Deane-Drummond, Robin Grove-White, and Bronislaw Szerszynski, “Genetically Modified Theology: The Religious Dimensions of Public Concerns About Agricultural Biotechnology,” Studies in Christian Ethics 14, no. 2 (2001): 27.
Related links:
Practical Ethics is a new blog that provides “reaction to the most recent ethical issues in the news, with a special focus on science related events” from a collection of people associated with the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. Given the presence of commentators from the Future of Humanity Institute, which has strong transhumanist leanings I’ll be interesting in knowing what’s considered ‘practical’ ethics.
Radio New Zealand National’s Nine-to-Noon programme had an interview last Thursday concerning the potential resumption of clinical trials of xenotransplantation techniques to help treat Type 1 Diabetes (through the implantation of pig tissue in a person’s pancreas). See Radio New Zealand National : Programmes A-Z : Nine to Noon : Thu, 30 August with the interview available as an MP3 here.
Related links:
Couple of interesting links from PBS Religion and Ethics this week. One on the tension between therapy and enhancement in healthcare and the other on the continuing rise of the “prosperity gospel”. I can see a time when the latter might preach the ‘abundant life’ with all the material trimmings includes the genetic enhancements for believers and their offspring.
John highlights a Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity seminar looking at biotech. See microclesia Blog Archive » Re-Engineering.
While, Wired has Wired Science - Wired Blogs - In Freeman Dyson’s Biotech Utopia, Say Goodbye to Darwinian Evolution which links to the (badly formatted) interview Freeman Dyson’s Brain.
Brief summary article ScienceDaily: Who Should ‘Own’ Genetic Information? points to the British Medical Journal news release Should families own genetic information? Yes — Lucassen 335 (7609): 22 — BMJ.
That article in turn points to two journal articles that argue for different sides of that discussion - one in favour of families and the other in favour of the individual. You can find them at:
If I can find a decent polling plug-in or widget for the blog I might turn this into a poll.
Got flicked the link to this the other day. The programme and keynote speakers aren’t there yet, but it looks like an interesting conference with potential for interaction between religious ideas of wellbeing and biotechnology.
See New Zealand Bioethics Conference: Wellbeing and Technology
A couple of interesting articles from Science about new stem cell research to file away under the bioethics category.
The biblical language of the early chapters of the book of Genesis continues to permeate the discussions of technology and no more so than in the area of genetic engineering. Both religious and secular writers draw upon images Babel, Eden, naming, gardening and the Fall to frame their arguments and to inspire the imagination of their readers. For example, Lee Silver’s “Remaking Eden: How Genetic Engineering and Cloning will Transform the American Family”, and Leon R. Kass’ “Technology and the Humanist Dream: Babel Then and Now”.
Often negative responses to technology (or aspects of it) appeal to a symbol like the biblical Tower of Babel in Gen 11:1-9. This is interpreted as an example of humanity’s hubris leading to God’s judgement, and therefore used as a justification for limiting technologies that appear to ‘play God’. Pete Moore, in his recent book (“Babel’s Shadow: Genetic Technologies in a Fracturing Society”) on genetic engineering examined from within the Christian tradition, notes the potential for such technology as a force for good, but he also uses the Babel symbolism to highlight its potential for disaster.
In biblical Babel the solution was to confuse the language and scatter the people. The result was diversity. In the future, the genetic ‘Tower of Babel’ may have a more lasting impact, and the scattering could come from new forms of discrimination and exclusion, or from events as extreme as a split into more than one human race. On the other hand, if controlled and managed with care, it could lead to a world where individuals are treated with respect and enabled to live out their full potential.
Maybe in response to his request for “SansBlogue: Getting ideas for Biblical Studies Podcasts”, Tim could do one of his ‘5-minute Bible‘ spots on Gen 11:1-9. Gen 1-3 get lots of coverage around the place, but the end of the Gen 1-11 primeval history less so. Might be a useful refresher for those who keep coming across the Babel motif.
This upcoming conference looks interesting:
Pacific Institute for Ethics and Social Policy: Challenging Assumptions: Religious Faith, Genetic Science, Human Dignity
(12 to 14 October 2007, Portland, Oregon, United States).
See CFP here.
A couple of links came to my attention this week. Firstly, the Singularity Institute have started a blog to promote ideas about the technological singularity (Greenflame » Pondering the Singularity (Again)), and at the same time I came across the bioethics podcasts from The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity. Both have interesting material on them, though they have quite different perspectives.
Here’s a selection of other links that relate to different people and groups looking at the future. It’s an eclectic mix pitched at a variety of levels, so caveat lector.
Nowhere near an exhaustive list, but it’s a start.
Xenotransplantation - in general terms, transplanting non-human organic tissue into human beings - looks likely to become more common in New Zealand in light of the decision to re-open the door to its use in potential diabetes treatment.
A couple of years back I did a few lectures about xenotransplantation and similar technologies that I argued would become more common in the near future, and that there were significant pastoral issues that would need to be faced in light of this. I still think this, and I worry that many people when faced with hard decisions about this type of procedure, and especially questions that it raises about human identity, will find little or no space in the faith communities to reflect upon and discuss it.
Even outside of the issues raised about its safety, the potential for a knee-jerk marginalization of individuals who do elect for these treatments (for whatever reasons) within the church and the wider community seems a very real possibility. Especially in communities that see the division between human and non-human in clear-cut, black and white, divinely-ordered categories.
For links to related articles and web sites see the category: Greenflame: Bioethics.
A while back Lindsay over at Random Murmurings pointed me towards the podcast of the ABC’s “All in the Mind” radio programme, and in particular this episode, All in the Mind - The Brain Computer Interface (2 December 2006). The episode looks at how technological developments, particularly in digital implants, might aid those with motor neurone disease and similar conditions.
The episode is especially interesting because includes excerpts from the paper co-authored by Nicholas Chisholm about his experience of locked-in syndrome and his observations on medical decision making and ethics from a position of complete lack of voice and power. It makes for very scary reading. The full text of the paper, co-authored with Grant Gillett of the Otago Bioethics Centre in Dunedin, is available at: The patient’s journey: Living with locked-in syndrome — Chisholm and Gillett 331 (7508): 94 — BMJ.
The issues presented connect closely those also raised by Gerard Goggin and Christopher Newell in several of their publications where they argue that those who are being “helped” by technology are left out of the consultative loop, and become merely tools used by those promoting the technology. They also note that ethical guidelines are also often determined by those with little or no personal experience of the issues being faced, and again those with that experience are not consulted. See:
Michael Spezio (neuroscientist and Presbyterian minister) is another voice who is concerned that the optimism articulated by transhumanists and techno-progressives about solving issues of disease technologically with brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) fails to take into account those who are being “helped”. (Spezio, M. L. (2005). “Brain and Machine: Minding the Transhuman Future.” Dialog 44(4): 375-380. (Link))
In the BMI world, conversations proceed, press releases go out, stock losses are assessed, all without noticing the very real presence of humans in our midst who have taken our species’ first steps into BMI. Both advocates and opponents appear to already know the outcome of BMI, and in these imagined knowledge scapes, the research participants who are the true BMI explorers remain blurry figures, faceless and voiceless and powerless to make any contribution. (379)
He notes that,
While the questions are necessary, the form of speculative minding used to sketch possible answers serves largely to obscure rather than clarify the true benefits and harms likely to result from any recommended policy. Remaining wholly or mainly in imagined relation to imagined individuals with BMI means treating such individuals always as distant third persons, really as manipulable objects of one’s own story. No matter how strongly one professes concern for a person or group of people, if that concern emerges from and is elicited by wholly one-sided constructions of those people, the chauvinism of such one-sidedness will always overshadow the concern. (378)
Reducing things to “issues” or “problems” to be solved distances us from recognizing the flesh and blood human beings involved - “others” who have let become things rather than persons.
Various links related to convergent technologies (nano-, bio-, information technologies and cognitive science):
Just erased and reinstalled everything on the iBook to get over the wobbles it was developing at the end of the thesis writing. In the process found these links I’d saved earlier.
Ashley X links:
Other links
Listened to James Hughes’ recent Changersurfer Radio podcast yesterday where he interviews Lee Silver (author of “Remaking Eden: How Genetic Engineering and Cloning will Transform the American Family“, and more lately “Challenging Nature: The clash of science and spirituality at the new frontiers of life“.) It’s an interesting interview because both Hughes and Silver sketch out what each thinks of religious (and quasi-religious) objections to transhumanism. Overall, their articulation of religious positions is limited, and doesn’t take into account the breadth of religious engagement with convergent technologies, but it serves as a useful insight into how some techno-optimists perceive the religious world.
I have a nagging doubt about their optimism about the human spirit too. The argue that many problems in the world could be solved if technological development was allowed to be unhindered - elimination of hunger, suffering and illness etc. However, we currently have technologies that could make a dent in those issues and it is more a matter of human will and of the human “heart” as to whether they will be. Certainly, the human propensities for self-interest, greed and control of resources never seem to feature in these discussions. Anyway, the full interview is available at: ChangeSurfer Radio: Challenging Nature.
Also, seen on the local library bookshelf (and now on loan here) is Simon Young’s recent book “Designer Evolution: A Transhumanist Manifesto“. Too late to put Young’s book in the bibliography but I’ll have skim through it sometime.
A conscience vote in the Australian House of Representatives passed legislation opening the door to human embryonic research (particularly therapeutic cloning) in Australia. See Embryo cloning gets the go-ahead - National - smh.com.au.
It’ll be interesting to see how that shapes discussion in NZ over the same issue.
Today I’ve been adding in some footnotes to articles about food aid to developing countries being linked with the requirement to accept genetically modified foodstuffs or crops. And also the attempts by some governments who supply aid for other problems (e.g. malaria) to make acceptance of GM crops as a condition for receiving that aid.
If you’re interesting in following the GM food topic then the Guardian special report section of their web site keeps track of news in that area (like the recent US GM rice debacle).
See Special report: GM food debate | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited.
Related links:
Nuffield Council on Bioethics : Genetically Modified Crops (includes material on GM crops in developing countries).
Christian Aid’s controversial paper: Selling suicide - farming, false promises and genetic engineering in developing countries (1999). Followed up in 2004 with Christian Aid and the GM crops debate.
Much food, many problems from the journal, Nature (402, 231-232 (18 November 1999)).
Report of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification [New Zealand Ministry for the Environment].
Still thinking about beneficence and technology. Some random quotes from that process.
Peterson, James C. Genetic Turning Points: The Ethics of Human Genetic Intervention Critical Issues in Bioethics. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.
The question for any technology is, how can we develop this to best love God and our neighbors? Asking that question is not trying to be God; it is following God’s orders, fulfilling a God-give mandate to maximize our service while we are here. Such development and intervention is not playing God. It is fulfilling a God-give mandate to serve. Whether our current physical nature is a starting point God intends us to improve upon, broken in the devastation of the fall, or both, it is clear the we could be physically better. We are responsible to do the best we can with what we have. As God’s people we are being created, redeemed, and transformed by God. Part of our calling is to participate in that process by sustaining, restoring, and improving what has been temporarily entrusted to us. (p.89)
Peters, Ted. “The Soul of Trans-Humanism.” Dialog 44, no. 4 (2005): 381-395.
Drawing a bright sharp line between therapy and enhancement seems easy to do. Therapy is ethical, whereas enhancement is not. Yet, is it so easy? For the theologian, the line gets blurry quite quickly. Let’s ask: if therapy focuses on health, does this refer strictly to bodily function? Let’s also ask: if the Christian faith emphasizes redemption, would this lead to embracing all forms of human betterment, even enhancement? Still one more question: would good health within Christian theology include enhancement? (p.384)
Spezio, Michael L. “Brain and Machine: Minding the Transhuman Future.” Dialog 44, no. 4 (2005): 375-380.
Will such enhancements actualize dormant human possibilities, or will they rather make it more difficult for that which is most human to be actualized, in the individual and in relationships? (p.377)
Graham, Elaine. “Bioethics after Posthumanism: Natural Law, Communicative Action and the Problem of Self-Design.” Ecotheology 9, no. 2 (2004): 178-198.
Yet to speak of an orderliness to nature, of its integrity as a mediation of divine purpose, is not the same as inferring an immutability to nature which forbids the ‘unnatural’ interventions of technology or cultural diversity. So we must be ware of attributing to ‘nature’ a fixity and purpose – or even a homogeneity and determinism – which it does not possess. Human relationships to nature are altogether more complex, and appeals to what is ‘natural’ provide little help when, as in the age of advanced biotechnology, this is the very category which is revealed to be malleable and problematic.(p.184-185)
Socio-economic inequalities may thus represent as profound a threat to human dignity as biotechnologies. (p.189)
Hansen, Bart, and Paul Schotsmans. “Cloning: The Human as Created Co-Creator?” Ethical Perspectives 8, no. 2 (2001): 75-89.
In brief, the power of mastering (human) nature through (therapeutic) cloning raises the question whether the human being, as the image of God, is permitted to carry out this task or whether God alone may exercise this right? (p.82)
I’ve been editing some material at the end of the thesis that looks at how the theme of ‘beneficence’ (the doing of good) interacts with technological development. The theme of actively doing good, rather than just not doing evil, is a significant one in religious reflection upon technological use. Indeed, the moral imperative to do good with technology is a common feature between religionists and transhumanists.
For example, Peter Vardy says of genetic enhancement in “Being Human: Fulfilling Genetic and Spiritual Potential“,
If there is a God, then God has given human beings rational minds to enable them to make moral decisions and to develop medical technology and other resources to help them to live in harmony within this world. Indeed, it is held to be one of the crowning glories of human beings that they do have these facilities. Once this is accepted, then to set limits to how this intelligence should be employed seems arbitrary. There has been a tendency in the past for religious people to be nervous of new developments. However, if they believe God has given human beings minds, then it seems perfectly proper to argue that these minds can be used in eliminating disease and physical defects and also in enhancing human beings further to enable them to fulfil their full capacity, by employing the genome in appropriate ways.
The question, of course, is: what are “appropriate ways”?
Would the following qualify? BBC NEWS | Health | Plan to create human-cow embryos.
Related links:
Greenflame: Is our DNA Sacred?
Greenflame: DNA, Stem Cells and Faith (contains links to responses to the above).
Back in July the Bioethics Council started a process of public discussion on and engagement with the theme of human embryo research (see Greenflame: New Zealand discussion of human embryos in research). Now, they have started to make some of the results of that process including video and audio content from public seminars, and later summaries of public discussion.
See Human Embryos in Research [Bioethics Council].
Multimedia links at Talking embryos seminar [Bioethics Council].
The pro-nanotechnology website of the Foresight Nanotech Institute has a brief review of the World Council of Churches report on the convergent/emergent technologies of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive sciences.
You can read their slant on the WCC document over at Nanodot: Nanotechnology News and Discussion » Blog Archive » Nanotechnology: World Council of Churches promotes UN approval required for all new technologies.
You can also download the WCC report from here: Science, Faith & New Technologies: Transforming Life — Volume I: Convergent Technologies. (PDF)
Update
There’s a complementary report Science, Faith & New Technologies: Transforming Life — Volume II: Genetics, Agriculture and Human Life. (PDF)
Related links:
Mark over at Reflections… wanted some more details about last Friday’s talk. So here are some links to related things:
All these things contribute to the sense the traditional boundaries are being lost. Human life is now found in the borderlands between what used to be clearly separated categories in the world.
Radio New Zealand’s National Radio programme Ideas (part of Sunday Morning with Chris Laidlaw) was a discussion on human embryo research in New Zealand, looking forward to the discussion over the next few months in NZ over policy. Featured a panel discussion including a good friend on mine, Graham O’Brien, and touched on a range of issues.
I hope the broadcast will be repeated at a later time, because many of those within the Christian community who might have been stimulated to think about these issues will have been in Sunday morning worship. (And, on the whole, bioethical discussions rarely, if ever, seem to feature in many congregations’ Sunday morning fare.) Still, the audio is available for the next month from the links at the bottom of the post.
From the “Ideas” web site,
6th August - Embryo ResearchTo do or not to do…that is the question? And when is a human being a human being? That is the other question.
Undertaking research on human embryos might enable us to understand more about human development, discover cures for debilitating diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s or be able to repair spinal cord injuries through the use of embryonic stem cells. But this is at the cost of a human life. Or is it?
The perennial questions about the beginning of human life are once more at the forefront as we debate the issue of whether to use embryos for research or not. And if New Zealand decides we will, then the next question is where will the embryos come from? They could be leftover embryos from IVF treatments, they could be created in the laboratory like they are for IVF treatments or scientists could use nuclear transfer techniques commonly known as cloning.
How does a society get consensus on this? How much pressure are scientists under to come up with answers to how and why debilitating diseases affect some people and not others?
Guests on the programme include:
- Professor Sylvia Rumball, Chair Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology and Chair, Massey University Human Ethics Committee
- Dr Richard Fisher, Co-Founder Fertility Associates
- Dr Ruth Fitzgerald, Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at Otago University
- Dr Graeme O’Brian, Spokesperson for the Interchurch Bioethics Council.
Related links:
Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (2006 Media Release, University of Otago, New Zealand):
Choosing Genes for Future Children: Regulating Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, is the first major report from the three-year multidisciplinary project which draws together a team of New Zealand and international researchers in Law, Bioethics, Science, MÄori and Paediatrics to examine whether, how and to what extent, human genome-based technologies should be regulated.
News article here: Stuff.co.nz: Researchers dismiss ‘designer babies’ concerns.
See also,
Greenflame: New Zealand discussion of human embryos in research
The NZ Bioethics Council (Toi te Taiao) has just launched an awareness programme about the use of human embryos in research. Discussion material is available for download and by post, as well as online discussion at their web site. This awareness campaign is timed to coincide with the Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ACART) advising the Minister of Health about embryo research. (You can find their discussion papers and make a submission direct to ACART throught their website.)
Bioethics Council links:
Human embryos for research dialogue events:
Related links: