Governing Reproductive Medicine & Reprogenetics: A Daunting Challenge
The Lilianna Sauter Lecture

Susan M. Wolf, University of Minnesota
Monday, May 23, 6:00 PM
Reception, 5:30PM
THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE 1216 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY 10029

There is no consensus in the United States on how to govern reproductive medicine, associated embryo research, and the new genetic interventions that can be combined with assisted reproduction. In contrast to England, the U.S. has no centralized body with the power to set limits and the ethical authority to move debate forward. At the federal level, efforts by the Food and Drug Administration, President's Council on Bioethics, U.S. Congress, and Executive branch have all proven problematic. State approaches vary widely, from the impressive work of The New York State Task Force on Life and the Law to less impressive and draconian regulation in other states. Professional self-regulation is important, but not enough. Yet we need limits, as shown by debates over preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and reproductive cloning, among other interventions. This lecture will analyze the major challenges facing any oversight proposal, including the risk of becoming too politicized, paralysis, misuse of law, inattention to the clinical realities of reproductive medicine, and losing sight of the needs of women, men, and children-to-be. Prof. Wolf will explore the options available, to propose how to move forward.

Susan M. Wolf is the Faegre & Benson Professor of Law and Professor of Law and Medicine at the University of Minnesota Law School, Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School, and a Faculty Member in the University's Center for Bioethics. She has served on a variety of governmental and institutional panels, and acted as advisor on various topics to the U.S. Congress's Office of Technology Assessment, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association (AMA), and others.

Professor Wolf writes frequently on genetics, assisted reproduction, death and dying, assisted suicide and euthanasia, women's health care, managed care, and other topics in health law, law and science, and bioethics. She is the author or coauthor of numerous articles and book chapters that have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the American Journal of Public Health, the Hastings Center Report, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, the American Journal of Law & Medicine, the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, various law reviews, and other publications. She directed the Hastings Center project that produced the influential book, Guidelines on the Termination of Life-Sustaining Treatment and the Care of the Dying (Indiana University Press, 1987), and is editor of Feminism & Bioethics: Beyond Reproduction (Oxford University Press, 1996). In 2004 she became Executive Editor of the new Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology < www.mjlst.umn.edu >.

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