News & Events

1st COBRA Postgraduate Conference in Bioethics
"Ethics at the Margins of Human Life"

The Centre of Bioethical Research and Analysis (COBRA), at the Department of Philosophy, NUI Galway will hold its first bioethics post-graduate conference entitled ’Ethics at the Margins of Human Life’ from 30 March - 1 April 2007.

It is hoped that this conference will contribute to the current development of a network of post-graduate students working in the area of bioethics, and offer an informal forum for presentation and extensive discussion of on-going research incorporating relevant disciplines, e.g. medicine, nursing, law, sociology and philosophy.

Locations: see Campus map; also signed from the main entrance of the Concourse. (The Moore Institute is in the Experimental Physics section of the building.)

11:00   REMEDI Satellite Event                                               
Rm 216, Clinical Science Institute, UCHG
            Dr. Deirdre Madden (School of Law, University College Cork)
            Legal Issues in Stem Cell Research

18.00   Opening Session                                                      
Moore Institute, off Concourse (Bank of Ireland side), NUI, Galway
Dr. Richard Hull, Director of the Centre of Bioethical Research & Analysis

Open Forum Discussion lead by Dr. Aonghus Nolan
Embryologist, (Fertility Unit, University College Hospital Galway) and member of Irish Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction (CAHR) 2000-2005.
“When is an embryo? not an embryo?”

19.00   Close
19.30   Wine Reception

FRIDAY 30 MARCH                                                               
Moore Institute, off Concourse (Bank of Ireland side), NUI, Galway

9.30     Registration
10.00   Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Ethics, Law & Policy
            Natasha Hammond (Cardiff Law School, Cardiff University)
            Does the Law in England and Wales concerning embryo research incorporate diverse ethical           opinions?
10.45   Break
11.00   Kay Duggan-Walls (Open University, Ireland)
            Scientists’ Involvement in Stem Cell Research Policy
11.25   Short break
11.30   Muireann Quigley (School of Law, University of Manchester)
            Should countries that ban stem cell research be precluded form its benefits?

12.15   Lunch: Students’ Union Bar, Áras na Mac Léinn

13.40   Sorcha Uí Chonnachtaigh (Dept of Philosophy/Remedi, NUI Galway)
            An examination of liberal-permissive approaches to the moral status of the human embryo

14.05   Break

14.20   Embryonic Choices, Future Families and Problems for Policy
            Eleanor Borer (School of Medicine, Health Policy and Practice, University of East Anglia)
            What are the issues surrounding parental selection for adoption vs implantation using donated        embryos?
14.45   Marion Ward (Dept of Philosophy & COBRA, NUI Galway)
            Ethics Review of Children’s Research in Ireland
15.10   Oliver Feeney (Dept of Political Science and Sociology, NUI Galway)
            Who’s to say what’s best?
15.55   Break
16.10   TBA (Mystery Session..!)
17.30   Close

18.30   Conference Dinner     

SATURDAY 31 MARCH                                                             
Seminar Room, REMEDI, Orbsen Building

10.00   Registration
10.15   Transplantations: Ethical Issues and Implications
            Fiona Ennis (Dept of Philosophy, University College Cork)
            An Argument Against the Mandatory Organ Lottery
11.00   Sheelagh McGuinness (Centre for Social Ethics & Policy Studies (Law), University of Manchester)
            Respecting the living means respecting the dead

11.45   Break

12.00   Meta-Methodology and Politico-legal Terminology
            Treasa Campbell (Dept of Philosophy, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick)
            Universality and unavoidability: The case for prescriptive biological norms
12.45   John Coggon (Cardiff Centre for Ethics, Law & Society, Law School, Cardiff University)
            Some Difficulties in Presenting ’Pro-Life’ Law as a Coherent Compromise
           
13.30   Lunch        

14.40   Thanatopolitical Cultures: Issues of Life and Death
            David Hunter (School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Ulster, Coleraine)
            The Stranger at our doorstep: Social Change, Suicide and Political Theory
15.25   Seán Mac Giollarnáth (Dept of Philosophy, University of Reading)
            On not killing nearly non-Lockeans
16.10   Break
16.25   Michael O’Rourke (School of English and Drama, University College Dublin)
            Bare, Inimical, Petrified, Precarious Life

17.15   Dr. Heike Schmidt-Felzmann, COBRA
            Concluding Remarks

17.45   Close

• Disclaimer
• Privacy
• Copyright
• Accessibility