Events

There are no reliable statistics on how many children are created in the United States from donated gametes. The CDC, which collects statistics on in vitro fertilization, reported that roughly 9,000 children were born from IVF with donated eggs in 2015. But according to the Donor Sibling, Registry, a survey of such parents found that 40% of those responding were never asked to report the birth of their child. And most births from donated sperm do not require IVF and are therefore not counted at all. Journalists writing about donor conception tend to rely on an outdated report of the Office of Technology Assessment, which estimated 30,000 births from donor insemination in the year 1986/87. The fertility industry has grown enormously since that date.

Although many countries have outlawed or restricted anonymous donor conception, the practice is virtually unregulated in this country. And because the U.S. has never debated legislation or regulation for donor conception, there has been almost no public discussion of whether it is ethical and, if so, under what circumstances and conditions.

On May 3-4, 2019, the NYU Department of Philosophy, together with the New York Institute of Philosophy and the NYU Center for Bioethics, will convene a conference of bioethicists to discuss the ethics of donor conception. The conference will be open to the public and free of charge. Required online registration will open a month before the conference.  

SPEAKERS
Elizabeth Brake (Arizona State University)
Reuven Brandt (University of California, San Diego)
Erin Jackson (journalist, San Diego)
Matthew Liao (New York University)
Inmaculada de Melo-Martin (Cornell-Weill Medical College)
Douglas NeJaime (Yale Law School)
Rivka Weinberg (Scripps College)

Registration is free but required. Please register here.

The NYU Center for Bioethics invites you to join NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge for the launch of Jonathan Metzl’s new book Dying of Whiteness, forthcoming from Basic Books, featuring the author in conversation with Alondra Nelson.

With the rise of the Tea Party and the election of Donald Trump, many middle- and lower-income white Americans threw their support behind conservative politicians who pledged to make life great again for people like them. But as Dying of Whiteness shows, the right-wing policies that resulted from this white backlash put these voters’ very health at risk—and in the end, threaten everyone’s well-being.

Physician and sociologist Jonathan M. Metzl travels across America’s heartland seeking to better understand the politics of racial resentment and its impact on public health. Interviewing a range of Americans, he uncovers how racial anxieties led to the repeal of gun control laws in Missouri, stymied the Affordable Care Act in Tennessee, and fueled massive cuts to schools and social services in Kansas. Although such measures promised to restore greatness to white America, Metzl’s systematic analysis of health data dramatically reveals they did just the opposite: these policies made life sicker, harder, and shorter in the very populations they purported to aid. Thus, white gun suicides soared, life expectancies fell, and school dropout rates rose.

Powerful, searing, and sobering, Dying of Whiteness ultimately demonstrates just how much white America would benefit by emphasizing cooperation, rather than by chasing false promises of supremacy.

For more information, and to RSVP, follow the link below:

Book Launch | Dying of Whiteness

Join us Friday, February 8th, 2019, for a special lecture with Hanna Pickard entitled “The Puzzle of Addiction”.

The Puzzle of Addiction
The orthodox conception of drug addiction is a neurobiological disease characterised by compulsive drug use despite negative consequences. But this conception depends on three core ideas that are rarely clarified: disease, compulsion, and negative consequences. Pickard argues that it is only when the significance of negative consequences is appreciated that the puzzle of addiction comes clearly into view; and she discusses some conceptual and empirical grounds supporting scepticism about the claim that addiction can be accurately characterised as a form of compulsion, and agnosticism about the claim that addiction is a neurobiological disease. Addiction is better characterized as involving drug choices that, while on the surface puzzling, can be explained by recognizing the multiple functions that drugs serve, and by contextualizing drug choices in relation to a host of interacting and individualized factors. Alongside craving or strength of motivation to use, these factors include (1) psychiatric co-morbidity, (2) limited socio-economic opportunities, (3) temporally myopic decision-making, (4) denial and motivated irrationality, and, lastly, (5) a sense of self and social identity. She shall briefly explain the relevance of all five factors, but conclude by focussing on (5) in more detail, exploring the distinctive way that the human drive not only for social reward and belonging but also to know who one is can serve to cement addiction and impede recovery.

Hanna Pickard is Professor in Philosophy of Psychology at the University of Birmingham, UK, and a 3-year Visiting Research Scholar in the Program of Cognitive Science at Princeton University. In addition to her academic work, from 2007-17 she worked in a NHS specialist service for people with personality disorders and complex needs. Website: www.hannapickard.com.

Friday, February 8th, 2019
4:00 – 6:00 PM
Pless Lounge, 1st Floor
82 Washington Square E, New York, NY 10003

Reception to follow

RSVP Here