Class Two

From Cyberlaw

Teo Dagi's Power Point slides (right click to save)

Group 1, Discussion Notes:

Captain Seth. Other Participants: Please post your names here: David, Evan, Laurie, Steve, Jackie, and.....

This is a rough recording. Much is left out. Feel free to add, edit, and respond:

Question: whether ethical questions about biotech necessarily a political dimension? Link to the goals of this class.

---depends entirely on how you define political; yes, if political means something that’s potentially controversial on a public scale

---New point: in Annas’s piece, Annas sort of dismisses religion as a core piece of American bioethics – which has Nuremberg at its base.

---But, we definitely have a sense that Bush’s view of bioethics has an inherently religious overtone

---in response to point from Wiki, and the need to rely on political system in the event of market failure: Nazi’s were market failure ---but weren’t the Nazis the most political? ---if political process is supposed to be a check to market forces running wild, then when politics don’t check, where do we look? ---appeal of religion here ---but whose religion? ---(reference to Evidence class: competing Lords of Truth; can one step in where others obviously fail? Which Lord wins?)

---Heinous Acts Discussion: ---when we step in depends on what the assumption of background risk is initially: more likely to step in if children are dying in U.S. than in a place where we expect them to die

---can you make an effort to make something less political? One worry is that Bush Administration is making things too political

---

almost any gov’t would probably say the Holocaust was horrible idea – how would you police that?

---political process? ---national or international policing? ---one student doesn’t understand why political process is necessarily flawed/inefficient just because we use other tools as well; dialogue can still exist – the dialogues that go alongside the issues we vote on – what we write about, speak about face-to-face ---maybe the argument is that voting alone isn’t enough ---gov’t won’t necessarily police itself, and it may be naïve to expect private citizens to be able to police gov’t (or private) research/experiments ---maybe we’re not worried so much about the crazy, outlier experiments, as we are about systemic shifts, societal changes

---govt regulation: proposal for a committee. --- Life-term, independent, ever 4 years, what setup? ---Supreme Court of bioethicists or an administrative agency or religious leaders (not the religious leaders!)

---why is it that we have something that controls our money supply – the Fed – and protects against economic depression, but not something that controls against moral depression?

---President’s Bioethics Council: no official power - just issues recommendations?

---Final word: you’re being political no matter what you’re doing – there’s no divorcing the person from her politics or the statements of the person from her politics [End of Group 1 discussion; -LNB]

Group 3, Discussion Notes:

Captain Brenda. Other Participants: Hey y'all, sorry I didn't get down all your names, so pls add them here.

These are just the bullet points I got down during our discussion. Pls add more, if you wish:

Can you have a moral conversation ab biotech w/o politics?

• If you leave it to the market, danger of unethical behavior
• Idea of combo authority w/ combo of academics, industry, politicians

Prez’s bioethics panel – but not rule making authority, Christian leaning

Is it possible to be apolitical

• Biotech seems to lend itself more to political scrutiny than widgets

Stem cells – prez can try to restrict only under Spending/Commerce Cl, possibly CRA (embryo as person)

Govt by referenda – maybe need to parallel process (e.g. majority of ppl support stem cell research)

• Is politics in the discussion necessary? Can’t separate politics from this class

What the law should be, blackletter law is not formed

Difference among countries – too much govt involvement can endanger human rights

• Not one defn of politics

What are the goals of this class?

• Should biotech regs be internationalized?
• Always some upside to these harms

Bottom line: We're not the dregs. We're the cream of the crop.