Vol. 3, No. 1
20 September 1999
PROGRAM NOTES
Short Notes on a Long Art
Newsletter of the Program in Human Rights & Medicine
Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Women's Health
Editors, John M. Dolan, Michael Murad
Life is short, the art long; opportunity fleeting,
judgment difficult, experiment, dangerous.
HippocratesSurgeons must be very careful
When they take the knife!
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the culprit, -- Life!
Emily Dickinson
I. Program News
Preliminary Note
Greetings and best wishes for every success in the new academic year! The Program has a number of events planned for the year ahead, but before saying anything about them, some brief reports about the many things that have taken place since the last issue of this newsletter. The accounts which appear here concerning Program seminars, lectures, conferences, grand rounds and publications and activities of Program scholars are invariably incomplete, often because busy Program members do not have time to keep the rest of us fully posted. In the present newsletter, the sin of incompleteness is of necessity extreme. The interval between the last issue and this one was long and crowded with so many activities that even listing them all is out of the question. We hereby tender in advance an apology to every lecturer, seminar leader, grand rounds speaker, and Program scholar whose contributions and accomplishments go unmentioned in this letter. In the meantime, as the new year gets underway, let "Minds move, and studies blossom"!
Four New Advisory Board Members
The Program is delighted to report that four distinguished
scholars have accepted invitations to join our advisory board.
The new board members are Richard Fenigsen, MD, PhD, cardiologist
and expert on euthanasia in the Netherlands; Professor Robert
George, PhD, JD, in the department of political science at
Princeton; Daniel Pilon, PhD, former president of the College of
St. Scholastica; and Alexander Schirger, MD, in the department of
cardiology at the Mayo Clinic. It is a pleasure to welcome these
eminent figures to the Program's advisory board!
Community Board in Formation
In a related and equally splendid development, two prominent
community members who have lent valuable support to the Program
over the years -- J. Randall Benham, JD, and Thomas Loome, DScTh
-- have agreed to serve on a Community Board for the Program and
to assist Daniel Pilon, Steven Calvin, and John Dolan in the
board's formation. It is a joy to welcome Randy Benham and Tom
Loome to formal affiliation with the Program!
Program Awarded a Major Grant
At the end of 1998, the Program was awarded a major grant
primarily to support its work on a curriculum in ethics and
jurisprudence for the department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and
Women's Health.
News of the Weird
A recent development in medical ethics at Princeton was deemed
sufficiently bizarre to merit remark in the popular syndicated
column "News of the Weird:"
In April, the administration at Princeton University reaffirmed its faculty appointment of Australian philosophy professor Peter Singer to a prestigious chair in bioethics, saying that "the strength of his teaching and research" outweighs "any particular point of view" he holds. One of Singer's points of view is that parents have the right to kill their severely deformed children in the first month of life.(Star Tribune, 26 August 1999, p. E12)
Robert George Appointed to Endowed Chair at Princeton
A much more cheerful development at Princeton concerns our new
advisory board member Robert George. Shortly after accepting the
invitation to join our board, he was appointed to one of the most
distinguished chairs at Princeton University: the Cyrus Hall
McCormick Chair in jurisprudence, a chair which has been held by
just four scholars in its hundred-year plus history. The first
occupant of the chair was Woodrow Wilson. The officers of the
Program send Robby George their warm congratulations!
Uzawa Lecture & Second Awards Ceremony
In January of 1998, advisory board member Dr. Hirofumi Uzawa
delivered a major address under our sponsorship on the theme
"The Economics of Health Care" at our second human
rights internships awards ceremony. The winners of the $3,000
awards were Michael Schleeter, whose project involved leading a
task force on the provision of primary medical care at the
clinics of Total Life Care Centers of Minnesota, and Aman
Bhandari, whose project involved a study of the health of migrant
workers. Professor Uzawa made three other public lectures under
the auspices of the Program during the four weeks he was here as
a guest of the Program.
Michael Murad Appointed to Program Staff
Michael Murad, a summa cum laude philosophy graduate from the
University of Minnesota with five years of high-level background
in the computing field, was appointed to a part-time position of
Program Assistant in the Spring. He has already made a number of
contributions, including updating and improving the Program's web
site. The Program's officers extend to him their thanks and a
warm welcome.
Some Highlights
Since the appearance of the last edition of this newsletter, the
Program has mounted and co-sponsored a number of events. These
included three lectures by the distinguished philosopher Donald
Davidson in the fall of 1997 ("Seeing Through
Language," "Restoring Truth," and
"Triangulating the World"), a symposium involving
Robert Morris and Donald Davidson at the Weisman Museum in
October 1997, an Ob/Gyn grand rounds on economics and health care
by Hirofumi Uzawa in January 1998, an Ob/Gyn grand rounds on rape
by David Bryden in February 1998, a seminar on the Bonobo by
Philip Regal in April 1998, a seminar on post-traumatic stress
syndrome and moral narrative by Joel Turnipseed in April 1998, a
seminar on brain death by Paul Byrne in May 1998, a seminar on
economics and health care led by Bryan Dowd and Roger Feldman in
October 1998, a seminar on eugenics at the University of
Minnesota by Mark Soderstrom in December 1998, a seminar on
female genital cutting led by Elizabeth Boyle in April 1999, and
a seminar on the Holocaust led by Stephen Feinstein in May 1999.
In March of 1999 the Program's officers celebrated Alexandria
Benham's citizenship with her parents, Pat and Randy Benham.
II. Program Calendar
Inaugural Hymie Gordon Memorial Lecture
The Program is delighted to announce the Inaugural Hymie Gordon
Memorial Lecture in October. The series honors Program co-founder
Dr. Hymie Gordon, who also co-founded the medical genetics
program at the Mayo Clinic. Professor Robert George, whose
appointment to an endowed chair at Princeton is reported above,
will deliver the Inaugural Lecture. His topic for the occasion is
"Academics, Advocacy, and Ethics." The lecture is
scheduled at the Radisson Metrodome on the 27th of October at 8
PM. The address of the Radisson Metrodome is 615 Washington Ave
SE. (Parking is available in a ramp right next to the hotel.) All
members of the University and of the larger community are
welcome! No admission charge.
Internship Winners 1999
The winners of the third annual Human Rights Internship
Competition are Mandy Beman of the University of St. Thomas, who
is working with the crisis pregnancy group Birthright of
Minnesota, and Hillary Mercer of the University of Minnesota, who
will work with the Women's Recovery Center, an organization
devoted to assisting women who are struggling to leave the world
of prostitution. Each of these students will receive an award of
$3,000. The awards ceremony will take place at the start of
Professor Georgešs lecture at 8 PM on the 27th of October at the
Radisson Metrodome.
October Banquet
The Hymie Gordon Memorial Lecture on the 27th of October will be
preceded by a reception and banquet at the Radisson Metrodome
starting at 5:30 PM. The cost is $30 per person. To make
reservations, please contact Mary Clifford at 612-626-6599.
Legalized Abortion and Crime
In November, Program Co-Chair John M. Dolan will lead a seminar
on the topic "Has Legalized Abortion Cut Crime Rates?"
John Donohue of the Stanford Law School and Steven Levitt of the
University of Chicago economics department are circulating the
draft of an article ("Legalized Abortion and Crime") in
which, after remarking that "crime has fallen dramatically
in the 1990s," they write: "We propose a new
explanation for falling crime: the legalization of abortion
roughly twenty years earlier." They support this claim about
the Roe v. Wade decision with a variety of statistics and assert
concerning their own estimates that if they "are correct,
legalized abortion can explain about half of the recent fall in
crime." The paper, which has not even been submitted to a
peer-reviewed journal, much less published, has enjoyed
widespread public attention, earning one of its authors an
appearance on National Public Radio and gaining attention from
other prominent news sources. The draft is posted on the web at
the following address:
http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=174508
Our seminar will be held in room 731 of Walter Heller Hall (the renamed Management and Economics Building on the Universityšs west bank). The address of Heller Hall is 271 -- 19th Avenue South. (There are several nearby parking ramps.) The seminar is scheduled on Saturday, the 20th of November, at 10 AM.
III. Scholarly and Professional Activity
KIRK ALLISON translated the article "Judenvernichtung: Die Erinnerung der Taeter" ("The Annihilation of the Jews: The Memory of the Perpetrators") by Brunno Schirra (Der Spiegel 1998.40), concerning medical abuse and ethical self-delusion in Auschwitz-Birkenau, for the University's October 1998 Medical School symposium "On Doctoring: Science, Medicine, and the Social Fabric." In April of this year he provided a statement to the National Bioethics Advisory commission on human embryonic stem cell research. Over the past year he presented a paper at a University of Minnesota graduate conference and published articles in a festschrift and in a Brazilian linguistics journal.
Advisory board member Fr. DANIEL BERRIGAN, continuing his long tradition of civil disobedience, has been arrested twice this year, once for protesting the New York City police shooting of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed Somalian immigrant who was shot to death by four policemen, and once for protesting the United States' bombing of Serbia this spring. He has published a series of books on the Hebrew prophets Daniel, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah (following his book on Isaiah, published in the fall of 1996). His book on Job will be published in the spring of 2000. An award-winning volume of his poetry has recently been published by Fordham University. Fr. Berrigan has been traveling and teaching (at Fordham among other places). This term he is teaching courses in scripture and poetry at DePaul University in Chicago.
BEN BORNSZTEIN now wears so many hats at Hennepin Count Medical Center (HCMC) and other institutions that his schedule is impossibly busy. He is Director of Medical Education Research in the Dept. of Medicine at HCMC; Curriculum Director of Postgraduate Fellowship in Addiction and Alternative Medicine at HCMC; Co-Director of the Career Development Program at the NIH Center for Addiction and Alternative Medicine Research; Director of Accreditation Studies at the Residency Program in Internal Medicine of HCMC; Director of Accreditation Studies in the Subspecialty Residency Program in Critical Care Medicine; and Curriculum Director at HCMC's Postgraduate Fellowship in Geriatric Medicine. We are flattered that he still finds time to attend program seminars.
Program co-chair STEVEN E. CALVIN continued his work in the area of public policy by testifying before subcommittees of the Minnesota House and Senate in support of a ban on partial birth abortions and also by writing an editorial in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune calling for abortion reform. He made an Ob/Gyn grand rounds presentation at the University of Minnesota last academic year, encouraging "perinatal hospice" care for women who are carrying babies with lethal anomalies: he describes this as "a fairly new concept offered as an option to families that do not choose to end the pregnancy by abortion."
Program co-chair JOHN M. DOLAN taught two courses in the philosophy of language with Donald Davidson during Davidson's stay here in academic year 97-98. Last year, he gave two talks at the University of St. Thomas: one on the topic of language and thought under the auspices of the philosophy department and another on the topic of medical ethics to the officers and faculty of that university's Catholic Studies Program. In January of this year, he addressed the Honors Pre-Med Society of the University of Minnesota on the topic of medical ethics and, in March, delivered the Inaugural Lecture ("On Stewardship") at a newly established research unit at Chuo University in Tokyo. While in Tokyo, he also addressed the governing board of the Keio International Insititute of Medicine on potential dangers of genetically modified crops and animals. In August, he and Steve Calvin were invited to serve as official advisors for a major international bioethics conference which the Keio Institute is mounting in Tokyo in November of 2000. His recent publications include the Tokyo lecture which is being published in Japanese translation in Japan and an article on euthanasia in the journal Logos. With Steve Calvin he has been teaching medical ethics to Ob/Gyn residents and developing an ethics and jurisprudence curriculum for the Ob/Gyn residency program. In June, he was inducted into the University of Minnesota's Academy of Distinguished Teachers. (The text of the statement he wrote at the invitation the Academy's officers can be viewed here).
Advisory board member JASPER HOPKINS is on sabbatical in Italy this academic year. He is preparing a book entitled Nicholas of Cusa: Metaphysical Speculations: Volume Two. Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) was one of the earliest German philosophers and was also a cardinal whose titular church was St. Peter in Chains, in Rome. Prof. Hopkins's work will consist of translations into English of two of Cusa's Latin works -- De Coniecturis and De Ludo Globi -- together with a 100-page analysis of these texts and some 1000 footnotes. His article entitled "Die Tugenden in der Sicht des Nikolaus von Kues" will appear sometime this year in Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeitrage der Cusanus-Gesellschaft.
Advisory board member CARL M. KJELLSTRAND, in addition to attending many symposia over the last few years, has continued his prolific flow of articles on topics in medicine and medical ethics. A sampling of his vast output since 1997: "All old Dialysis patients should be offered Dialysis," Geriatric Nephrol Urol 6: 129 - 136. 1997; (with Lam G, Kovithavongs C, Ulan R): "Duration and Adequacy of Dialysis: The Science is Easy, the Ethics Very Difficult," ASAIO Journal 43: 220 - 224. 1997; (with Szabo E, Hamilton T, Ang C, Kovithavongs C, Moody H): "Choice of treatment greatly influences quality of life. -- A study in dialysis patients," Arch Intern Med 157: 1352 - 1356 1997; "Withdrawing from Dialysis: a rational decision for some diabetic ESRD patients," Seminars in Dialysis 10: 235 - 237. 1997; (with Szabo E, Kovithavongs C.): "Income is a very important variable that affects survival in ESRD," J. Am. Soc Nephrol 8:197 A. 1997; (with Kovithavongs C, Szabo E): "On The Success, Cost and Efficiency of Modern Medicine - an International Comparison," J.Intern Med. 243: 3 - 14. 1998; "Giving up - Discontinuation of Dialysis," in Diabetic Renal-Retinal Syndrome 5 Ed. pp 269 - 278. Eds: Friedman & E L'Esperance FA, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Netherlands, 1998; "Patient and Therapy Perspectives: Choosing the Patient - Is Better Worse?," Chapter 12. In: Quality Assurance in Dialysis, 2nd Edition, Eds. Thuna RS and Henderson LW, pp 125 - 132, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Netherlands, 1999; (with Szabo E, Kovithavongs C, Moody H): "Psychological quality of life in ESRD patients is not influenced by age and does not deteriorate with time," JASN 9: 215A. 1998.
PAUL LINTON has been busy working in the area of state constitutional abortion law. Among the briefs he has filed: one in the Sixth Circuit Court in connection with an appeal of Kentucky's partial birth abortion decision, two in the Supreme Courts of Alaska and Tennessee in cases involving parental consent and informed consent, and one in the Texas Court of Appeals in a case concerning abortion funding. He also recently published a 150-page manual, "State Constitutional Law Abortion Litigation Manual: A Guide to the Law," which presents analyses of state constitutional law on abortion and listings of all state abortion litigation in the United States since 1969. He may return to South Africa this fall to lecture on the topic "The American Experience with Abortion."
Advisory board member SANDRA MENSSEN has our congratulations on her recent promotion to full professor at the University of St. Thomas! She chaired that University's Committee to Develop an M.A. program in Catholic Studies in 1997-1998 and last year became co-editor of Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, published under the auspices of the Center for Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas. Among her many forthcoming publications are: two articles co-authored with Thomas D. Sullivan: "Evil, God, and the Agnostic Inquirer" in Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, forthcoming, and "Can the World's Evils be Reconciled with the Existence of God?", Great Thinkers on Great Questions (ed. Roy Abraham Varghese), Oneworld Press, also forthcoming. Other publications include "The Problem of the Continuant: Aquinas and Suarez on Prime Matter and Substantial Generation," (co-authors: John D. Kronen and Thomas D. Sullivan), The Review of Metaphysics, forthcoming; and the following two articles with Thomas D. Sullivan, in Cosmos, Bios, Theos (ed. Roy Abraham Varghese), Peter Lang, forthcoming: "Homer, God, and Evil" and "Dostoevskian Horrors and the Problem of Grading Worlds."
Advisory board member DANIEL PILON "hit the ground running" when he joined the board. He has already made invaluable contributions to the Program's fundraising efforts and has assumed a leadership role in the development of a Community Board.
ROSS OLSON, MD, will be speaking at the Annual Memorial Service of the pro-life group Citizens for Community Action of St. Paul on September 26th.
Advisory board member LEO TWIGGS has written or co-authored over a dozen articles since our last newsletter. Among his more recent offerings are the following: (with Palmer JR, Driscoll SG, Rosenberg L, Berkowitz RS, Lurain JR, Soper J, Gershenson DM, Kohorn EI, Berman M, Shapiro S, Rao RS): "Oral Contraceptive Use and Risk of Gestational Trophoblastic Tumors," Journal of the National Cancer Institute 91(7):635-640.1999; (with Saltzman AK, Hartenbach EM, Carter JR, Contreras DN, Carson LF, Ramakrishnan S) "Transforming growth factor-alpha (TGF-a) levels in the serum and ascites of patients with advanced epithelial ovarian cancer," Gynecol Obstet Invest (in press); (with Fowler JM): "Endometrial Cancer," in Current Therapy in Obstetrics and Gynecology, 4th edition, W.B. Saunders, Philadelphia. (in press); (with Byers LJ, Fowler JM): "Carcinoma of the uterus," in Clinical Oncology, M. Abeloff, J. Armitage, A. Lichter, J. Niederhuber (editors), Churchill Livingstone Press, New York, NY (in press); (with Saltzman AK): "Review of Dr. Beth Erickson's Case," in The Tumor Board: Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment, J.B. Lippincott-Raven Publishers, Philadelphia, PA (in press); (with Prendiville W, Ritter J, Tatti S) eds.: Colposcopy: A Practical Approach. WB Saunders. (In press).
Leo Twiggs will assume the positon of Associate Dean of the University of Miami School of Medicine in Miami, Florida, in January. Though we are sorry to see him leave, we look forward to working with Dr. Linda F. Carson who will begin serving as interim department head in his place. Dr. Twiggs has made many valuable contributions to the University in general and the Program in Human Rights and Medicine in particular. His fellow officers join in thanking him for all that he has done for the Program and in wishing him every success in his new position.
Advisory board member DAVID WEISSBRODT has continued to teach international human rights, torts, administrative law, and immigration law at the University of Minnesota Law School. He also continued his service as the United States member of the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, which meets each August in Geneva, Switzerland. In August 1998, Prof. Weissbrodt made presentations on (1) human rights violations in five selected countries; (2) indigenous human rights; (3) improving the human rights procedures of the U.N.; (4) the draft convention on disappearances; (5) racism and affirmative action; (6) the rights of non-citizens; and (7) concluding remarks on the 50th session. He was elected Vice-Chairman of the Sub-Commission and served as a member of the Sub-Commission's Working Group on Communications and its Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery.
In September 1998 Weissbrodt gave the keynote address for the 27th annual conference of the League of Minnesota Human Rights Commissions, which met in St. Cloud. In October he was honored at the annual Twin Cities International Citizen Awards Dinner in St. Paul, and testified before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in Washington, D.C., on the role of the Civil Rights Commission in protecting human rights. In December he gave a presentation at Northwestern Law School on documenting human rights abuses; served as the rapporteur for the International Academic Conference on the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Amsterdam; and gave a presentation in Weingarten, Germany, on the impact of human rights norms and the causes of human rights violations. During this past year he has also published articles on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right to fair trial, the 49th and 50th sessions of the U.N. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, and new concerns about human rights abuses by non-state actors. In 1999 the University of Minnesota gave Professor Weissbrodt an Outstanding Community Service Award. The officers of the Program extend to David Weissbrodt their warm congratulations!