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Past events

Special Bioethics seminar: Conscientious objection in the new abortion law

Monday, 6 December 2021 - Online via Zoom
This special Bioethics seminar will be presented by lawyer Holly Hedley of Buddle Findlay Lawyers, with a response from Associate Professor Angela Ballantyne of the University of Otago.

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The Strange History of Head Transplants (and what it tells us about medical ethics)

Monday, 4 October 2021 - Bioethics Seminar Room (Room 119), Bioethics Centre, Bioethics Centre, Level 1, 71 Frederick Street, Dunedin
Bioethics Seminar presented by Brandy Schillace.

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Paediatric Seminar - All deaths are not equal: The Ethics of Counting Deaths during COVID-19

Thursday, 18 February 2021 - Seminar room 2, 3rd floor Children's Pavilion, Dunedin Hospital
or zoom https://otago.zoom.us/j/1469, Dunedin
All deaths are not equal: The Ethics of Counting Deaths during COVID-19

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Exploring moral life in the anthropocene - Susan Wardell

Monday, 9 March 2020 - Bioethics Centre Seminar Room
Room 206, Level 2
Otago Business School
This seminar is based on Dr Wardell's research around environmental grief, hope, and the discourse of ‘hopium’ among environmental doomers.

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Getting your DNA tested

Monday, 2 March 2020 - Bioethics Centre Seminar Room
Room 206, Level 2
Otago Business School

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Australasian Association of Bioethics and Health Law Conference

Thursday, 21 November 2019 - St David Lecture Theatre, University of Otago

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Bioethics, Retrospect and Prospect

Monday, 14 October 2019 - Bioethics Seminar Room - Room 206
Otago Business School, Level 2
60 Clyde Street

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The death of a human soul

Monday, 8 April 2019 - Level 2, Room 206
Otago Business School
60 Clyde Street
University of Otago

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Mike King - Animal Welfare Law in NZ: Are we doing it right?

Monday, 20 August 2018 - Bioethics Centre
71 Frederick Street
Dunedin Central
Dunedin

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The relevance of complexity theory to Bioethics

Monday, 13 August 2018 - Bioethics Seminar Room
71 Frederick Street
Dunedin Central
Dunedin

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Emily Keddell - Predictive risk tools in child welfare

Monday, 6 August 2018 - Bioethics Centre
71 Frederick Street
Dunedin Central
Dunedin

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Clare Delany: What kinds of cases do paediatric clinicians refer to clinical ethics

Monday, 30 July 2018 - Bioethics Centre
71 Frederick Street
Dunedin Central
Dunedin

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Consent to Posthumous Reproduction

Monday, 23 July 2018

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Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing

Monday, 16 July 2018

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Bioethics Seminar - Profiting from the sale of bodies and body parts: The world of body brokers.

Monday, 28 May 2018 - Bioethics Seminar Room, Level one, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street).
This highly lucrative industry was brought to light recently by a series of investigations by Reuters. Gareth Jones highlights the ethical issues at stake,

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Bioethics Seminar | Will the duty of candour in healthcare work?

Monday, 23 April 2018 - Bioethics Seminar Room, 71 Frederick Street
Presented by Dr Oliver Quick, University of Bristol Law School

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Transgender women’s participation in sport

Monday, 16 April 2018 - Bioethics Seminar Room, Level one, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street). Also video-linked Christchurch and Wellington.
How should we respond when an elite athlete wishes to move from the male division to the female division or vice versa?

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Hot Health | The End of Life Choice Bill: Potential Implications for Healthcare Practitioners

Thursday, 5 April 2018 - Barnett Lecture Theatre,1st Floor Dunedin Hospital

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Bioethics Seminar | Ethical challenges in learning healthcare systems

Monday, 26 March 2018 - Bioethics Seminar Room, 71 Frederick Street
Dr Stuart McLennan, Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Switzerland

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Bioethics Seminar | Rural nursing: Engaging with the benefits and challenges of the rural setting for sustainable workforce development

Monday, 19 March 2018 - Bioethics Seminar Room, 71 Frederick Street
Presented by Dr Kathryn McAuley, Department of General Practice and Rural Health

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Bioethics Seminar: High-stakes decision making for young children–An approach to parental refusals of treatment

Monday, 12 March 2018 - Bioethics Seminar Room, 71 Frederick Street
Presented by Janine Penfield Winters, M D

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Bioethics Seminar | Eugenic sterilisation in New Zealand: The Mental Defectives Amendment Act of 1928

Monday, 5 March 2018 - Bioethics Seminar Room, 71 Frederick Street
Presented by Professor Hamish Spencer, Department of Zoology

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Bioethics Seminar | Public deliberation on mandatory childhood vaccination policy

Monday, 19 February 2018 - Bioethics Seminar Room, 71 Frederick Street
Presented by Professor Michael Burgess, University of British Columbia, Canada

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Bioethics Seminar: Public deliberation on mandatory childhood vaccination policy

Monday, 19 February 2018 - Bioethics Seminar Room, Level one, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street).  (Also video-linked to ChCh and WGTN campus).
Michael Burgess discusses ethical dimensions that are important for democratic governances of childhood vaccines.

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Bioethics Seminar: Anti-obesity policy and distributive ethics

Monday, 16 October 2017 - Bioethics Centre Seminar Room,  First Floor, 71 Frederick Street. Also video-linked Christchurch and Wellington Campus.
Martin Wilkinson explains why choice-reducing anti-obesity policies would not be justifiable on the grounds that they help their targets.

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Bioethics Seminar: How the Philosophy gets in

Wednesday, 11 October 2017 - Bioethics Seminar Room, Level one, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street). Also video-linked Christchurch and Wellington Campus.
Jesse Wall considers the role Bioethics plays in Health Law, outlining how we draw upon philosophical norms when we explain, criticise, justify, and reform the law.

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Bioethics Seminar: Coping with death

Monday, 2 October 2017 - Bioethics Seminar Room, Level one, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street). Also video-linked Wellington and Christchurch campus.
Ben Gray (Primary Health Care and General Practice) describes his experience of learning to manage death and dying and speculates on possible ways to assist students to be more comfortable around death.

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Bioethics Seminar: Challenging the role of conscientious objection in medicine

Monday, 25 September 2017 - Bioethics Seminar Room, Level one, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street).  Also video-linked to Christchurch and Wellington campus.
Angela Ballantyne presents cases of potential conscientious objection to help refine a definition, ensure consistency, and to avoid discrimination. 

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Bioethics Seminar | Beyond safety: Ethical issues in gene editing

Thursday, 21 September 2017 - Bioethics Seminar Room, Level one, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street. Also video-linked Christchurch and Wellington Campus.
How safe and effective are new gene editing tools and what are some of the moral concerns that have have been raised in response to them? What place do these concerns have in public deliberation and science policy?

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Bioethics Seminar |"Caught napping”: New Zealand’s response to the 1967 UK Abortion Act

Monday, 18 September 2017 - Bioethics Seminar Room, Level one, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street). Dunedin. Also video-linked Christchurch and Wellington campus.
Barbara Brookes explores the impact of the 1967 UK Abortion Act in New Zealand .

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Bioethics Seminar: Religious input in the debate on embryo research in New Zealand

Monday, 11 September 2017 - Bioethics Seminar Room, Level one, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street) Dunedin. Also video-linked Christchurch and Wellington Campus.
Gareth Jones examines the extent to which the needs, values and beliefs of Māori, and the different ethical, spiritual, and cultural perspectives in society has occurred in the debate on embryo research.

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Bioethics Seminar: Echoes and replies

Monday, 4 September 2017 - Bioethics Seminar Room, Level one, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street). Also video-linked Christchurch and Wellington.
Neil Pickering reflects on teaching involving poetry in a humanities selective in the 3rd year of the MBChB. Does poetry have a role in medical education?

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Public lectures on animal research

Friday, 1 September 2017 - Red Lecture theatre
Public lectures on animal research with Dr Helena Hogberg and Professor Roger Morris

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Bioethics Seminar: Contemporary challenges in dementia care

Monday, 28 August 2017 - Bioethics Seminar Room, Level one, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street).  Also video-linked Christchurch and Wellington Campus.
This presentation coincides with the July 2017 publication of a major international report by the Lancet Commission on Dementia Prevention, Intervention, and Care. In light of this report, Brent Hyslop outlines contemporary challenges in dementia care.

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Professor Jing-Bao Nie's Inaugural Professorial Lecture: Reclaiming a sense of common humanity: A Chinese vision

Wednesday, 23 August 2017 - Room G10
71 Frederick Street
Dunedin
(entrance off car park on Malcolm Street)
The Inaugural Professorial Lecture Series 2017

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Bioethics Seminar: How should we constrain physicians’ discretionary space to ensure good medicine?

Monday, 21 August 2017 - Bioethics Centre Seminar Room, First Floor, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street). Also video-linked Wellington and Christchurch Campus.
Guest speaker Doug McConnell, Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Charles Stuart University, presents.

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Bioethics Seminar: Hard capacity cases - an English perspective and a plea for help

Monday, 7 August 2017 - Bioethics Seminar Room, Level one, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street) Dunedin. Also video-linked Christchurch and Wellington.
Alex Ruck Keene presents preliminary results of research into the way in which the Court of Protection seeks to address difficult capacity cases in England and Wales.

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Bioethics Seminar: Well-being and Being

Monday, 31 July 2017 - Bioethics Seminar Room, Level one, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street) Dunedin. Also video-linked Christchurch and Wellington campus.
Andrew Moore explores the idea that difference of one's well-being requires difference of one's being.

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Bioethics Seminar: From the margins to mainstream: how autologous stem cell treatments are legitimised in Australia.

Monday, 15 May 2017 - Bioethics Seminar Room, Level one, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street) Dunedin. Also video linked  to UOW and UOC campus.
Casimir MacGregor examines the strategies of legitimacy of Australian providers of unproven autologous cellular products marketed as ‘stem cell treatments’.

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Screening of Human Harvest

Tuesday, 9 May 2017 - Dunedin Dental School, Blue Lecture Theatre, Corner of Frederick Street and Great King Street.
An unflinching documentary about mass murder for profit in modern China. Human Harvest has been granted one of the most prestigious awards in television and broadcast, the Peabody Award.

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Bioethics Seminar: Whose justice for whom and how? A hermeneutic exploration of Confucian 義 “Righteousness"

Monday, 8 May 2017 - Bioethics Seminar Room, Level one, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street), Dunedin. Also video linked Wellington and Christchurch Campus.
William Evans Visiting Fellow, Ole Döring, introduces a deliberate hermeneutical approach to bioethics.

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Bioethics Seminar: To Die for One’s Country – the Japanese Way

Monday, 22 August 2016 - Bioethics Seminar Room, Level one, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street) . Also video linked: To secure the booking for this seminar video link in Christchurch and Wellington, please register your name for attendance: Wellington School of Medicine Room D31 Contact: Videoconferencing University of Otago Wellington videoconf.uow@otago.ac.nz   . University of Otago Christchurch Room 7.11 Contact: Dean Pester: dean.pester@otago.ac.nz  .Please note: if there is no registration (for northern campuses) by the Thursday prior to the advertised seminar, the booking for that campus venue will be cancelled. Dunedin attendees do not need to register.
Takashi Shogimen explores the distinctively Japanese way of dying for one’s country, highlighting an aspect of Japanese patriotism and discussing what dying means for the Japanese.

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Bioethics Seminar: Do all legal rules that rely on the concept of mental incapacity deny people with disabilities ‘equal recognition before the law’?

Monday, 12 October 2015 - Bioethics Seminar Room, Level one, 71 Frederick Street (entry on Frederick Street). Dunedin. Also video linked: To secure the booking for this seminar video link in Christchurch and Wellington, please register your name for attendance: Wellington School of Medicine Room D31 Contact: Videoconferencing University of Otago Wellington videoconf.uow@otago.ac.nz . University of Otago Christchurch Room 7.11 Contact: Dean Pester: dean.pester@otago.ac.nz. Please note: if there is no registration (for northern campuses) by the Thursday prior to the advertised seminar, the booking for that campus venue will be cancelled. Dunedin attendees do not need to register.
In 2014, The United Nation’s Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities published an official General Comment on the UNCRPD. This says that all legal rules that rely on the concept of mental incapacity deny people with disabilities ‘equal recognition before the law’, and are discriminatory...

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Advocacy to Expand Autonomy at the End of Life in the US: Evolving Law, Medicine and Policy

Tuesday, 17 March 2015 - Moot Court, Level 10, Richardson Building
Professor Kathryn Tucker, Executive Director of The Disability Rights Legal Center, Los Angeles, USA presents a Public Lecture.

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Global Animal Law & New Project

Monday, 16 March 2015 - Archway 2
Sabine Brels, Manager of the Global Animal Law Project

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Nga Wai Whakaata O Hine-Kauorohia: The Reflecting Waters of Hine Kauorohia

Wednesday, 1 October 2014 - Archway 2 Lecture Theatre
Fulbright/Te Tumu lecture by Sir Tamati Reedy (Ngāti Porou), Fulbright alumnus

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The New Zealand Bill of Rights: Continuing the Conversation

Tuesday, 3 June 2014 - The Old Legislative Council Chamber, Parliament Buildings, Wellington
Otago Faculty of Law and the New Zealand Law Foundation

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Protecting the Public? An Analysis of Complaints and Disciplinary Proceedings against Doctors in Australia and New Zealand

Tuesday, 13 May 2014 - Moot Court, 10th Floor Richardson Buildin
Protecting the Public? An Analysis of Complaints and Disciplinary Proceedings against Doctors in Australia and New Zealand

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Interested in the Role of the Coroner?

Thursday, 17 October 2013 - Visitors' Office, 9th Floor Richardson Building
The Role of the Coroner - an Informal Conversation with Coroner Wallace Bain

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2013 Winter Lecture Series - Saviour Siblings and Criminal Genes: Law and technology in the 21st century

Thursday, 15 August 2013 -  Auckland Centre, Level 4, University of Otago House, 385 Queen Street, Auckland
Associate Professor Colin Gavaghan, Director of Emerging Technologies, Faculty of Law, Division of Humanities

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Biculturalism, multiculturalism and interculturalism: theological reflections on justice and cultural diversity

Thursday, 15 August 2013
The three terms in the title express different stances on the just treatment of cultural and religious diversity. Dr. Jonathan Chaplin, first Director of the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, responds to the terms from the standpoint of a theology of cultural justice.

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Student Animal Legal Defence Fund - Animal Law Week

Monday, 5 August 2013 - University Campus
Supported by the faculty of Law

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4th Australia-New Zealand Roundtable on Genomics

Sunday, 4 August 2013 - Queenstown
Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects of Next-Generation Methodologies, with particular reference to prenatal testing, general issues about managing incidental findings, and current issues in research involving Maori

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Do Our Genes Justify Our Behaviour?

Wednesday, 4 July 2012 at 8:30pm - Staff Club
 Do our genes justify our behaviour?