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Visiting Scholar: Angel Petropanagos
2-30 March 2016

Aggressive therapies are improving pediatric cancer survival rates. However, these therapies can also cause infertility, which may have serious physical, psychological, and social implications for cancer survivors. Experimental fertility preservation technologies, such as ovarian tissue cryopreservation, aim to preserve the future option of genetic reproduction by removing, freezing and storing reproductive materials for future use. Yet, decision-making about pediatric fertility preservation is complicated for many reasons, including the fact that parents must serve as proxy decision-makers for their children.

This research project outlines the ethical challenges surrounding decision-making about pediatric fertility preservation, by considering relevant questions about the value of genetic reproduction and the appropriate role of minors in reproductive decision-making. It will identify the particular practical, epistemic, and systemic barriers to ethical decision-making concerning pediatric fertility preservation and develop an ethical framework for evaluating and resolving these ethical challenges. In particular, this project will:

1. evaluate relevant (but limited) Canadian and international guidelines concerning pediatric cancer, proxy decision-making, and fertility preservation in order to characterize the unique decision-making challenges within the context of聽 pediatric fertility preservation;

2. explore emerging conceptions of childhood well-being that challenge the notion that the use of fertility preservation is in a child鈥檚 best interest;

3. develop a set of conditions for ethical informed choice about pediatric fertility preservation.

PAST

Workshop: Inter-country medically assisted reproduction (IMAR) 鈥� Conceiving a human rights ethic
Fran莽oise Baylis (Speaker)
January 18 - 21, 2016

聽Current practices of medically assisted reproduction (MAR) have myriad ethical, legal and social implications. This workshop focuses on the ethics of the growing global market of inter-country medically assisted reproduction (IMAR), and on particular concerns about human rights violations of women donating egg cells or serving as surrogate mothers. The objective of the workshop is to explore and conceptualize ethical principles for a human rights based regime of governance that might offer an alternative to the unregulated market. The intention is to produce a first draft of ethical guidelines for IMAR.

Workshop: Whistleblowers & the Exposure of Clinical Research Misconduct
Fran莽oise Baylis (Speaker)
November 18-20, 2015

From November 18-20, 2015, the Brocher Foundation in Hermance, Switzerland is hosting a workshop on Whistleblowers and the Exposure of Clinical Research Misconduct. The workshop will include analysis of the general phenomenon of whistleblowing in response to clinical research misconduct, consider what prompts particular individuals to engage in "whistleblowing" activities while others remain silent in the face of apparent wrongdoing, and explore particular examples of whistleblowing activity. 聽Confirmed speakers include Fran莽oise Baylis, Charles Bosk, Lex Bouter, Raymond De Vries, Bernice Elger, Carl Elliott, Valerie Junod, Trudo Lemmens, Douglas Sipp, Erica Sutton, and Leigh Turner. Details concerning the workshop, a draft meeting agenda, and an online registration form are available . There is no charge to attend this event. Seating is limited to a maximum of eighteen registered attendees. 聽Please register as soon as possible if you wish to attend. 聽Questions concerning the workshop should be directed to Leigh Turner (Associate Professor, University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics & School of Public Health) at turne462@umn.edu.

Visiting Scholar: Fran莽oise Baylis
October 1-29, 2015

Impact Ethics:聽 Accountability is a notoriously difficult concept to define given the scope of practice in policy-making. My starting assumption is that bioethicists engaged in policy work should eschew 鈥渃heap鈥� ethics and embrace Impact Ethics. Bioethicists who do policy work must be accountable to all those potentially affected by the policy deliberations, and at a minimum this accountability requires transparency and reason-giving for positions taken, and policy options advocated. My research will explore the implications of three further assumptions. First, bioethicists engaged in policy work should be accountable for the research programs they undertake. The concern here is with the excessive attention to high-tech issues (e.g., cognitive enhancement) at the expense of low-tech issues (e.g., clean water, hospice care) that affect a significantly larger percentage of the population. Second, bioethicists should be accountable for the level of expertise they bring to policy deliberations and this should include a deep understanding of relevant theoretical, factual and practical issues. The concern here is with those who presume ethics expertise on most if not all topics, thereby failing to appreciate the depth and range of knowledge and experience needed to advise on discrete policy matters. Third, bioethicists should be accountable for the way(s) in which they contribute to the 鈥渇raming鈥� of policy issues and options. Concern here is with the obligation to address systemic economic, social and political injustices (instead of taking these for granted), and to question the dominant assumption that human well-being can properly be measured in terms of productivity, material goods, or technological progress.

Summer Academy: ELSI in assisted Reproductive Technologies
Fran莽oise Baylis (Speaker)
June 1-5, 2015

The following topics, all of which have a significant impact on the delivery of assisted reproductive technologies, will be discussed: impact in social life, social and cultural dimensions of infertility, the challenges raised by new developments in ART, Donor related issues, homoparenting, public policy and legislative regulation of reproduction, the moral status of embryos and gametes, economic and cost-effectiveness, the role and relevance of insurance policies and regulatory agencies.

This page last updated October 2015