GU-Q conference explores controversial issues about genetic and reproductive technologies
Academic researchers and scholars from across the humanities and social sciences are gathering at GU-Q’s Education City campus, to partake in a conference, open to the public on October 7th to discuss family structure in the wake of the different applications of genetic and reproductive technologies.
Dr. Ayman Shabana, associate research professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, is spearheading the organizational efforts of the symposium taking place on 7 and 8 October 2018 at GU-Q. Dr. Shabana stresses the importance of the symposium saying: “As much as the various applications of genetic and reproductive technologies have introduced solutions to many hitherto intractable problems, they have equally raised challenging social, legal and ethical questions. Answers to these questions require collaboration of experts in many fields across the various professional and academic sectors”.
Conference keynote speakers include renowned authorities in their fields such as Professor Marcia Claire Inhorn, a medical anthropologist and professor of anthropology at Yale University. Her presentation is entitled “the Small Family issues, and the Son Selection in the Muslim World: How Contraceptive and Assisted Repro-genetic Technologies Came to Intersect”.
From the ethical point of view, professor of Medical Ethics Inmaculada de Melo-Martin, from Weill Cornel Medicine – Cornell University will present research on “Reprogenetic Technologies and the Valuing of the Biological Family”.
And from an Islamic perspective, associate professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto Mohammad Fadel will discuss “the Admissibility of DNA Evidence as Proof of Paternity in Light of Maqasid Al-Sharia”.
Dr. Shabana notes that the symposium aims at expanding the scope of a three-year project on the same theme: “These questions are not important only to professionals and experts but they are also important to everyone. They should therefore be addressed at the wider societal level. By bringing together a group of eminent researchers and specialists representing a diverse range of expertise, this conference aims to contribute to the public debate on these issues and to increase awareness about their importance”.
The “Family structure in the wake of Genetic and Reproductive Technologies” project, which is now in its third year, was awarded a grant from QNRF’s NPRP program. This project builds on two earlier projects and includes a bibliographic component, which seeks to expand the existing physical collection and electronic database of resources, which includes records of more than 4000 bilingual (English-Arabic) scholarly resources hosted at GU-Q. The research component utilizes these and similar resources in exploring the impact of new genetic and reproductive technologies on the Islamic conceptualization of the nuclear family. The Project explores this impact from three main perspectives: Islamic ethico-legal discussions both in the pre-modern and modern periods; modern positive legal structures and legislation; and the modern social scientific perspective.
The conference is sponsored by the Qatar National Research Fund, and members of the public are invited to register for the conference on October 7. Please visit our website at https://www.qatar.georgetown.edu/news-events/events/family-structure-wak…