The annual Rabinowitz Lecture in Medical Ethics was held the evening of May 28, 2014 with Professor Inmaculada de Melo-Martín who presented "It's a Boy! The Ethics of Sex Selection."
Professor de Melo-Martin discussed how the use of new reproductive and genetic technologies is presenting us with many difficult ethical choices. Is it ethically permissible to select embryos of a particular sex for social reasons? Often proponents of this practice use the procreative liberty framework to defend their position. Although this framework has some appealing features, Dr. de Melo-Martin argued that in the context of sex selection for social reasons its use is problematic. She discussed the scope of procreative liberty and the assumptions involved in the defense of sex selection.
Professor Immaculada de Melo-Martin will be the Rabinowitz Visiting Professor in our department in winter quarter 2015. She will teach a special topics course "Ethical Issues in Reproductive and Genetic Technologies." Professor de Melo-Martin is currently a Professor in the Division of Medical Ethics, Weill Cornell Medical College at Cornell University. She has a PhD in Philosophy and an MS in Molecular Biology and works on ethical and epistemological issues related to reprogenetics and the biomedical sciences. We look forward to having her join our department in January.
Please watch Prof. de Melo-Martin's entire talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmdV_6ISElQ&feature=youtu.be