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Symposium to Address Ethics of Assisted Reproduction Oct. 13 at SUNY Health Science Center

Advances in fertility technology have forever changed the way we look at childbearing. Scientific breakthroughs also have created ethical issues including multiple births of fragile children, the cost of treatment, and changing views of parenthood.

The State University of New York Health Science Center at Syracuse will examine this topic at its Ethics Symposium on “Infertile Ground: The Ethics of Assisted Reproduction” Wednesday, Oct. 13 from 1 to 4 p.m. in Medical Alumni Auditorium of Weiskotten Hall, 744 Irving Avenue. The lecture is free and open to the public.

“It is clear that technology is moving faster than the moral framework. Every week brings headlines on fertility–egg donation, ovary transplants, post-menopausal mothers, new procedures–yet we are trying to catch up on how to handle the ethical issues,” said symposium panelist Wendy Edwards, M.D., Health Science Center associate professor of medicine and a bioethics scholar.

Edwards will be joined by Shawky Badawy, M.D., professor and chair of the Health Science Center Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, who will provide information on the latest techniques in his presentation, “Assisted Reproduction: Current Medical Practice.” Also presenting is Sandy Lane, Ph.D., a Health Science Center associate professor in health science and human studies and a behavioral scientist with the Onondaga County Department of Health, who will examine the role of fertility on human civilization in “Reproduction and Culture.”

“Fertility has had a huge influence in our culture since ancient times,” Lane noted. “A large portion of the earliest codes of law have to do with rules that control reproduction.”

Editor’s Note: Symposium participants may be available for interviews prior to Oct. 13. Please call Darryl Geddes in Public Relations to make arrangements.