ASBH Annual Conference 2014

Later this week I will be attending the annual conference of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. This is the nation’s largest bioethics conference, and it is always highly entertaining and educational. It makes me consider issues from new perspectives and it shows the full gamut of bioethics scholarship across the country. It features some of the world’s leading ethicists and philosophers, and it also includes many sessions where people working in the field present their research. There are preconference workshops, plenary sessions, paper sessions and affinity group meetings. The affinity groups are groups who gather around common interests. For example, there is an affinity group on rural bioethics, one on Jewish bioethics, another on sexuality and gender identity, one on neuroethics, and so on. These are less formal meetings that occur over meal hours, where people can discuss common interests. I usually try to attend the affinity group on research, and then on whatever hits my fancy at the time.

Below is a list of the general sessions, which will give you an overview of the scope of the conference.

• Articulating the Goals and Assessing the Impact of Bioethics Projects: A Report from the ABPD Working Group

• Made Vulnerable: Notes on Privilege; or, How When You Say Their Names, the Bodies Go Missing

• Moral Sources for Collaborative, Practice-Based Ethics: A Transformation for Education and Practice

• Sanctity of Life, by L. J. Schneiderman: A Staged Reading

• Collaborative Solutions to Challenges in Health Care and Education: A Forum Theatre Workshop

• Bioethics Literacy Across the Lifespan

• Migration and Health: Opportunities and Challenges from the Bioethics Perspective

• A Global Perspective on Women’s Rights to Health and Safety: Progress or Regress?

• From Clinical to Community Sequencing: Emerging Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues in Genomics

We are off at the Davenport campus next week, so I will post upon my return.