Vol. 2, No. 2
10 October 1997
PROGRAM NOTES
Short Notes on a Long Art
Newsletter of the Program in Human Rights & Medicine
Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology
John M. Dolan, Editor
Life is short, the art long; opportunity fleeting,
judgment difficult, experiment, dangerous.
HippocratesMany physicians are interested in a rich man's illness.
Chinese Proverb
I. Program News
Theodore Nagel on New Approach to Fertility Clinic
Fee-Setting.
We are pleased to announce that Theodore C. Nagel, MD, will open
our Fall Schedule with a seminar devoted to a new method of
setting fees at fertility clinics which has spurred controversy.
The method, sometimes crudely caricatured with the slogan "A
baby or your money back," is one under which couples seeking
help at an assisted reproduction clinic are offered rebates if
the assisted reproductive technology does not result in
conception after a certain number of attempts. The idea is to
leave the couples in such cases with funds to pursue adoption.
Dr. Nagel, clinical associate professor in the Department of
Obstetrics and Gynecology, will speak about the cost rebate
incentives which several assisted reproduction clinics in the
United States are now offering. His title: "The Fertility
Cost Warranty Program -- A New Paradigm of Payment for Assisted
Reproductive Technologies." Dr. Nagel will present several
case studies illustrating features of this program. The seminar
is jointly sponsored by the Program in Human Rights &
Medicine and the Graduate Medical Education Program of the
Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology. The seminar will take
place on Saturday, the 18th of October, at 9:00 AM, in Room
2-2520 Moos Tower. We look forward to seeing you at the seminar.
For further information, call 626-6559.
Uzawa to Lecture & Present Awards
Advisory board member Hirofumi Uzawa (an eminent economist who
was declared "a national living treasure" by the
Emperor of Japan) will be here at the University in January and
early February as an official guest of our program and of the
department of economics. At the outset of an address on the
economics of health care, Dr. Uzawa will present certificates of
award to the winners of this year's human rights internships. The
ceremony and lecture, sponsored jointly by the College of Liberal
Arts and our Program, will take place in the Lecture Theater of
Coffman Union at the University of Minnesota on the 28th of
January at 12:20 PM. As usual, admission is free and everyone is
welcome. Plan to attend.
Noam Chomsky Presents Awards
Our human rights internships awards ceremony in the Great Hall of
Coffman Union on April 15th was attended by over 1000 persons.
Steven Rosenstone, the new Dean of the College of Liberal Arts,
introduced Noam Chomsky and announced the winners of our
internship awards: Jeff Hoelscher, a philosophy major at the
University of Minnesota who will be working with the American
Indian AIDS Task Force; Kehri Kazcmarek, a second year law
student who will be working with Feminists for Life of Minnesota;
and Richele Macht, of Southwest University, who will be working
with Birthright of Minnesota.
The enormous audience was welcomed by Program co-char Steven E. Calvin. John M. Dolan introduced Steven Rosenstone. The Dean then announced the names of the award winners and invited them onstage to receive their certificates of award from Chomsky.
Chomsky, a member of our Advisory Board, delivered an address on the topic "Democracy and Rights" and led a lively question and answer period. Anyone interested in obtaining tapes of the lecture and Q&A session should contact Mary Clifford at 626-6559.
Program Conference for Medical Professionals a Success!
The Program's conference for medical professionals,
"Vulnerable Patients and the Aim of Medicine" last
April 19th was a smash success. We turned a number of would-be
enrollees at the door, having reached the capacity of the room.
The total enrollment was 80 (41 of them physicians). The
conference, which carries 6.0 clock hours of continuing medical
education credit, had a faculty staff which included the
Program's co-chairs, Steven Calvin and John M. Dolan, Ruth
Bolton, MD (former member of the Department of Family Practice),
Paul Byrne, MD, the nationally known expert on brain death
criteria, Ron Hoekstra, MD, of Children's Hospital, Mahmoud
Nagib, MD, of the University's Department of Neurosurgery, and
Konald Prem, MD, from the Department of Obstetrics and
Gynecology. The proceedings are being readied for publication.
Human Rights Internships
The Program is conducting its second annual competition for
student human rights internships. The awards enable students at
Minnesota institutions of higher learning (graduate and
undergraduate) to carry out projects with organizations whose
work focuses on persons who risk unfair treatment under our
health care system. Interested students can obtain guidelines and
application forms in room 12-190 Moos Tower (from 1-5 PM
weekdays), the CHIP lounge in Moos Tower, and the Philosophy
Department office in room 355 Ford Hall. It is also possible to
download the forms from the Program's web site
(www.umn.edu/phrm). If you are in contact with any students in a
position to carry out internships, please encourage them to
apply. For further information, call 626-6559.
II. Calendar
Donald Davidson's Lectures on Language and Thought
The distinguished philosopher Donald Davidson, of Berkeley, who
arrives shortly for his residency as Visiting Hill Professor,
will be teaching two courses with Program co-chair John M. Dolan
and delivering a series of lectures on "Language and
Thought" under the sponsorship of the Graduate School, the
Program in Human Rights & Medicine, a number of other
University departments, and five local colleges and universities.
The lecture schedule is as follows:
Lecture I
20 Oct. (Mon.) 3:30 PM
"Seeing Through Language"
Room 2-530 Moos Tower
Lecture II
5 Nov. (Weds.) 3:30 PM
"Restoring Truth"
Room 211 Nicholson Hall
Lecture III
12 Nov. (Weds.) 3:30 PM
"Triangulating the World"
Room 211 Nicholson Hall
For those curious as to what will be going on in the lectures, Professor Davidson has provided us with a synopsis.
"What is the role of language in our relations with people and to the world we share with them? Language is not a device interposed between us and reality ("Seeing Through Language"), but an ability without which there would be no organized perception, desire, belief, intention, or action. With speech we acquire the distinction between what is, and what merely seems to be the case, the distinction between belief and truth ("Restoring Truth"). Learning to talk and conversing are interpersonal activities. Since language is essential to thought, it follows that thought itself is a social phenomenon ("Triangulating the World")."
Admission is free and all are welcome to attend.
Symposium involving Robert Morris and Donald Davidson
The pioneering minimalist artist, Robert Morris, has produced a
remarkable series of art works whose canvases incorporate actual
texts from the philosophical writings of Donald Davidson. These
works have been exhibited at the Guggenheim in New York, the
Pompidou in Paris, and other major venues.
Symposium
29 Oct. (Weds.) 2:00 PM
"Blind Time Drawing with Davidson"
Weisman Museum
Admission is free, but, because of the keen interest in this event and the limited seating capacity of the Weisman auditorium, people interested in attending must pick up (free) tickets at the Weisman before the day of the symposium.
Chomsky Film
Once again, the three-hour Canadian film, "Manufacturing
Consent," devoted to advisory board member Noam Chomsky's
critique of the U.S. news media, is being shown to one of John
Dolan's logic classes. The screening is at 7 PM, on the 29th of
October (a Wednesday), in room 3210 EE/CSci. Once again, people
associated with the Program in Human Rights and Medicine and
their guests can attend without cost. If you haven't seen the
film, plan to attend. (The wait to see it on one of the major TV
networks is likely to be infinite.)
Bioethics Film Festival Redux
We plan to show again this year the film which was the biggest
hit of our Bioethics Film Festival last academic year. That was
the BBC documentary "Are the Donors Really Dead?" We
have a tentative commitment from Dr. Paul Byrne, an expert on
brain death who is among the physicians interviewed in the
documentary, to give a presentation in connection with the film.
Details concerning the screening of the film and Dr. Byrne's
lecture will be announced later in the academic year. Stay tuned.
David Bryden on rape
Professor David Bryden, advisory board member and the Gray,
Plant, Mooty, Mooty & Bennett Professor of Law at the
University of Minnesota's Law School, will be giving a sequel to
the enthusiastically received seminar on "Redefining
Rape" which he led under our auspices in May of 1995. In the
seminar, which will take place on the 21st of February, Professor
Bryden will draw on a booklength monograph he recently completed
on the topic of redefining rape. (See the paragraph devoted to
him below in Section III, "Scholarly Activity," for
bibliographical and other information.)
Officers Teach Medical Ethics
This Winter Quarter, Steven E. Calvin, MD, (co-chair of the
program), John M. Dolan, PhD, (the other co-chair), and Jasper
Hopkins, PhD, RN (advisory board member) will, once again jointly
offer Philosophy 5235, "Medical Ethics," a course
required of graduate students minoring in bioethics.
Officers Teach Law Seminar
This Fall Quarter, David Bryden (constitutional lawyer and member
of our advisory board) is teaching the law school course,
"Our Obligations Towards Various Forms of Life," he and
John M. Dolan introduced into the Law School curriculum four
years ago. Steven Calvin, who served as guest lecturer in the
course in previous years, is serving in that capacity again.
III. Scholarly Activity
Kirk Allison
Kirk Allison, Program member and doctoral student in German,
wrote from Europe this Spring, where he was teaching and
conducting research earlier this year, to tell us that "I am
working pretty hard...commuting between Marbach Germany and
Salzburg weekly. At the former is the German Literature Archive
where I am also renting a room. Consequently, I am eating the
European equivalent of a ramen noodle diet." Kirk reported
that he "wrote 4 articles for The Robert Frost
Encyclopedia, including one on a little noticed quatraine
concerning nuclear war and politics (U.S. 1946 King's X). The
others are of a more literary and somewhat less political and
polemical character, but have less to do with" the program's
focus. His communication contained the following paragraph:
I went to Poland two weeks ago -- to Krakow. Also to Auschwitz I and Birkenau. The latter is over 400 acres in size. Near the rubble of crematorium/gas chamber IV there were foundations of a number of storage buildings. I noticed something breaking the surface of the dirt, edgewise: a mother of pearl, hand-made button from a woman's garment. I found a fragment of a second not far from it. (I left it -- perhaps one of the history deniers will stumble across it.)
Daniel Berrigan, SJ
Daniel Berrigan spoke at several retreats last spring, including
one in Pennsylvania for an ecumenical group of forty. He says
that, in these retreats, "I relate the Bible to people's
lives, to give them hope -- these are difficult times for good
people." Later in the Spring, he addressed a national
gathering of campus ministers in San Francisco. In addition, he
has been helping to take care of members of his community who are
ill with cancer. He is on the road this fall, giving retreats and
talks. Next spring he will be teaching a course at Fordham
University on "Poetry and Politics," which will be a
study of the works of poets from all over the world "who
have gotten in trouble for their poetry."
David Bryden, JD
Professor David Bryden, advisory board member and Gray, Plant,
Mooty, Mooty, and Bennett Professor of Law at the University, has
completed his monograph "Redefining Rape." (On the 21st
of February, Professor Bryden will present a sequel to the
marvelous seminar on that topic which he gave for us in 1995.)
His article on "Rape in the Criminal Justice System"
appears in the June issue of the Journal of Criminal Law and
Criminology, and his article titled "Affirmative Action:
Are Compromises Tenable?" appears in the Fall 1997 issue of
the journal The Public Interest.
Steven E. Calvin, MD
Steven Calvin, Co-Chair of the Program, addressed the topic of
abortion before the law school seminar taught last fall by David
Bryden and John Dolan, taught medical ethics with John Dolan and
Jasper Hopkins during the Winter quarter, and was kept busy
advising Senator Rick Santorum (of Pennsylvania) during the
debates over the Partial Birth Abortion Ban this spring. In
March, his review of the book, Life as We Know It, was
accepted for publication by the journal Minnesota Medicine.
In April, he was a Visiting Scholar at Northwestern College in
Orange City, Iowa, where he gave a seminar and a chapel
presentation about various aspects of the current abortion
debate, and, on the 14th of May, he was interviewed on National
Public Radio's "All Things Considered" concerning the
Partial Birth Abortion Ban.
Mary Krumholz Clifford, RN
In addition to carrying out her many tasks as Associate Director
of our Program, Mary Clifford addressed the New Ulm Council of
Catholic Women on the 23rd of January on the topic
"Euthanasia and Living Wills." She also had an article,
"A Nurse's Perspective on Physician-Assisted Suicide and
Euthanasia," accepted for publication in the volume on Suicide:
A Postmodern Perspective (edited by Demy and Stewart),
Kregel. At the moment, she and John Dolan are engaged in the
preparation of the proceedings of our April conference for
medical professionals for publication.
John M. Dolan, PhD
John Dolan taught the Department of Philosophy's graduate course
in medical ethics in the winter term of this year. He proposed
the theme for our successful conference for medical professionals
on the 19th of April and, with Steven Calvin and Mary Clifford,
organized the event. In September, he was the keynote speaker at
the annual convention of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation in
Harrisburg, Penn. His topic: "Is Assisted Suicide the Next
Step in Homicidal Medicine?" Last month, he also addressed
the annual convention of Birthright of Minnesota. His paper
"Is Physician-Assisted Suicide Possible?" appeared in
the Duquesne Law Review last fall and his paper
"Homicidal Medicine" is scheduled to appear in Suicide:
A Postmodern Perspective. This term he is teaching two
courses with Donald Davidson (one on philosophy of language and
another on moral philosophy).
Jasper Hopkins, PhD, RN
Jasper Hopkins spent the week of June 9-13 examining three
medieval Latin manuscripts in Italy -- one at the Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana, another at the Biblioteca Medicea
Laurenziana (Florence), and a third at the Biblioteca di Santa
Scolastica (Subiaco). These are manuscripts of Nicholas of Cusa's
De Aequalitate, the Latin text and translation of which
will be included in Hopkins's forthcoming book of translations
entitled Nicholas of Cusa: Metaphysical Speculations.
Jane Hoyt, MEd
Long time program member Jane Hoyt, Chair of the Nursing Home
Action Group, has been continuing her intensive advocacy work on
behalf of persons with disabilities. In April, at the invitation
of Good Age, published by the Wilder Foundation, she
published an article titled "Doctor Assisted Suicide Should
be Shunned" as a counterpoint to an article favoring
physician-assisted suicide written by a philosophy professor from
Duluth.
Paul Benjamin Linton, JD
Paul Benjamin Linton, of Illinois, who has presented penetrating
analyses of topics in law and medicine for our Program over the
years and has served as a guest lecturer in the law school course
taught by John Dolan and David Bryden, wrote an amicus curiae
brief last fall on behalf of state legislators in support of the
states of New York and Washington, which appealed two
controversial rulings concerning the legality of suicide and
"physician-assisted" suicide (Compassion in Dying v.
Washington and Quill v. Vacco) to the U.S. Supreme Court. He was
one of only three non-government attorneys who took part in three
moot courts for New York Attorney General Dennis Vacco and Senior
Assistant Attorney General William Williams of the state of
Washington in these cases. More important, he and his colleagues
prevailed in both cases: the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June
that the bans against assisted suicide in New York and Washington
are both constitutional.
His article, "The Illinois Equal Rights Provision at Twenty-Five: Has it Made a Difference?" was published by the Southern Illinois University Law Journal in its Winter 1997 issue.
Mr. Linton, who recently left his position as General Counsel of American United for Life, is currently working with the Texas state legislature on a case which has been brought there involving the issue of state funding of abortion. He is in contact with attorneys in South Africa, who have sought his advice regarding a challenge they may mount to the new abortion law which went into effect there in February of this year. If the challenge goes forward, Mr. Linton may travel to South Africa to assist with the case. He will be leading a seminar for us on the 22nd of November.
Carl Malmquist, MD
Carl Malmquist's book, Homicide: A Psychiatric Perspective,
was published by the American Psychiatric Press last year and has
enjoyed widespread notice and acclaim. After modestly declining
our invitation to have his book the focus of a symposium, he
participated instead last Fall in a symposium titled
"Homicide: Clinical, Legal, and Philosophical
Perspectives" at which he shared the stage with John M.
Dolan and Michael Tonry of the Law School.
Sandra Menssen, PhD
Advisory board member Sandra Menssen's recent publication include
"Grading Worlds," American Catholic Philosophical
Quarterly, "Must God Create?," Faith and
Philosophy (her co-author was Thomas D. Sullivan), and
"Reason and Religion," in the volume Science and
Theology (which she also edited).
Leo B. Twiggs, MD
Leo B. Twiggs, MD, Head of the Department of Obstetrics and
Gynecology and member of the Program's advisory board, was an
invited speaker at the Aldara National Investigators Conference
sponsored by 3M, which was held in Phoenix in March of this year.
He traveled to Coimbra, Portugal, in April to attend the Tenth
International Meeting of Gynecological Oncologists. In May the
Department hosted a group of national leaders in the field of
Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Twiggs also reports that he and
his colleagues in the Department are very excited that Dr. John
Yeh, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, has joined the
Department as Head of the Division of Reproductive Research.
David Weissbrodt, JD
Prof. David Weissbrodt, member of our advisory board and
Co-Director of the Human Rights Center, has just returned from
Geneva where he worked with the United Nations on the preparation
of a book to provide guidance to the monitoring efforts of
on-site U.N. human rights field operations. The book deals with
observing assemblies, elections, trials, and the process of
returning refugees as well as visiting refugee camps and prisons.
In January, he chaired a meeting of experts to provide guidelines
for the U.N. Decade on Human Rights Education. Professor
Weissbrodt taught a course on human rights at the Graduate
Institute of International Studies of the University of Geneva in
the Fall of 1996 and a seminar on the right to a fair trial last
Spring. In August, Prof. Weissbrodt served for the second year as
the U.S. member on the U.N. Sub-Commission on Prevention of
Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.