Reminder: Chair of the President’s Council on Bioethics to Speak at Holy Cross

WORCESTER, Mass. – Leon R. Kass, one of the country’s leading scholars of issues in bioethics, who has served as Chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics since his appointment by President George W. Bush in 2001, will deliver the 39th annual Hanify-Howland Memorial Lecture on March 21 at 8 p.m. in the Hogan Ballroom at the College of the Holy Cross. Dr. Kass is the Addie Clark Harding Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the College at the University of Chicago (on leave) and Hertog Fellow in Social Thought at the American Enterprise Institute.

The lecture, titled "Science, Politics, and the Dilemmas of Bioethics," is free and open to the public.

Kass will address controversial issues in bioethics, such as stem cell research, cloning, genetic engineering, psychotropic drugs, brain imaging and deep brain stimulation. These breakthroughs reveal that the sciences of genetics, developmental biology, and neuroscience are rapidly providing vast new powers to intervene in the human body and mind, not only to heal disease and relieve suffering but to attempt "improvements" in human nature itself.

Kass will also highlight some enduring difficulties in effecting a sound relationship between science and society and explore questions such as: Where is biotechnology taking us? How far do we want to go? Most important, can we find a way to govern the uses of biotechnology so as to reap their benefits without degrading and dehumanizing humans in the process?

The annual Hanify-Howland lecture honors the late Edward F. Hanify, a 1904 graduate of Holy Cross and a Massachusetts Superior Court justice for 15 years, who died in 1954. The series was started by Hanify’s friend, the late Weston Howland of Milton, Mass., board chairman of Warwick Mills, Inc., who died in 1976.

Since 1965, the Hanify-Howland lecture series has brought high-profile speakers to Holy Cross who have found creative and powerful ways to serve the community. The aim of the lectures is to foster student debate and discussion of current issues, as well as inspire members of the community to commit their lives to public service.