Link:PowerPoint slide presentation
Date:Monday, October 15, 2012
Time:7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Location:Ernest N. Morial Convention Center
Room:388
Speaker:Raymond E. Phinney Jr., Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Psychology Department
Wheaton College
501 College Avenue
Wheaton, IL 60187
Contact:Chris Mathes, PhD
Mobile phone:732-586-1073

 

In the current era of biotechnological advances, there is critical need to better understand what it means to be a human person. Many recent biotechnological innovations—such as IVF with possible embryo reduction, genetic testing for the selection of embryos, some forms of birth control, and the use of embryonic stem cells—may be considered either life destroying or life-enhancing depending on one’s view of what it means to be a person. I will survey some historical and contemporary models of personhood, to help us more clearly think about the meaning and value of the afore-mentioned procedures and other policy issues.