Ira M. Belfer Lecture
Playing God: Who Should Regulate Embryo Research?
Baroness Ruth Deech, Past Chair of the U.K. Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
4:00-5:30 p.m.

Recent legislative and scientific developments have only intensified debate over the ethics and regulation of human embryonic stem cell research. Baroness Ruth Deech, a renowned authority on stem cell research and reproductive technology, examined the ethical, political, and regulatory issues involved in the research through a comparison of relevant laws in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Italy. She also proposed a model regulatory framework.

Baroness Deech was Chair from 1994 to 2002 of the U.K. Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority, a government agency charged with monitoring IVF facilities and regulating both the use of artificial reproductive technology and research involving genetic materials. Baroness Deech taught jurisprudence, family, property, international, and constitutional law at Oxford from 1970-1991, when she was elected Principal of St. Anne.s College at Oxford, serving until 2004. She was appointed a Dame of the British Empire in 2002 and created a life peer (Baroness) and a member of the House of Lords as a non-party legislator in 2005. She currently serves as the first Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education for England and Wales.

The Belfer Lecture is made possible by the generosity of Dr. Myron L. Belfer, a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Department of Social medicine. The lecture series honors his father, Ira M. Belfer, Class of 1933. A distinguished leader in the field of corporate, real estate, trusts and estates law for over half a century, Ira M. Belfer served on the Board of Trustees and was a generous benefactor to the Law School.

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