The Center for Biotechnology, Law and Ethics is a bioethics, biotechnology, and biotechnology law research center of Cumberland School of Law located on the Samford University campus in Birmingham, Alabama. It is one of the few research centers of its kind at a United States law school, and, in conjunction with the Cumberland Law Review, the Center publishes an annual journal of scholarly works, which circulates in the United States and foreign countries.Cumberland Law Review Samford News Children's research brochure
The center was founded in December 2003 by David M. Smolin, who serves as its director.
The Center focuses its research and conferences on the ethical and legal implications of biotechnology and biotechnology law, rather than pursuing a general emphasis on the subject of bioethics or bioethics law like many other academic research centers. Its location within Birmingham places it in an emerging center for biotechnology research and commerce. Of primary importance for the Center, however, is generating law review articles on emerging biotechnology issues, which is often done as part of a conference speakers' presentation.
Methodology and purpose Research focuses on understanding current bioethical issues related to biotechnology and biotechnology law, as well as how different ideologies answer, or if they even can answer, different bioethical issues. The Center's approach to bioethical research attempts to understand "multiple perspectives" and evaluate the validity of each.Cumberland Programs
The Center has sponsored five conferences that have dealt with the United States health care system, research on children, biofuels, genetically modified foods, and whether the field of bioethics and its methodology can provide actual answers to ethical questions or merely the opinions of ethicists.
Annual symposium
The center hosts an annual Symposium at which experts give presentations on bioethical issues. The papers are published in the Cumberland Law Review. The symposia attempt to offer a broad range of views and seek factual, persuasive solutions to problems, rather than to generate opinionated debates.
Speakers have included United States Congressman Artur Davis, atmospheric scientist John Christy, medical ethics expert Gregory Pence, Vermont Law School's environmental center director Michael Dworkin, John Nyman, Larry Palmer, and law professors, entrepreneurs and other experts. Speakers often publish a paper in the Cumberland Law Review that develops the theme of their presentation. Many of the articles are available online.
Topics Feb. 26, 2010 - The Missing Girls of China and India: What Can Be Done? Feb., 2009 - Transportation Energy Policy in National and Global Perspective: a New Beginning? Feb., 2008 - Child laundering and international adoption - "The Baby MarketThe Baby Market Feb., 2007 - The United States Health Care System: Access, Equity, and Efficiency Feb., 2006 - Biofuels and the New Energy Economy Mar., 2005 - Bioethics Methodology - Does the Field of Bioethics Provide Answers or Expertise? - An Exploration of Secular and Religious Methodologies Mar., 2004 - Genetically Modified Foods - National and Global Implications of Genetically Modified Organisms: Law, Ethics & Science. Mar., 2003 - The Ethical and Legal Issues in Research with Children
Scholarly output The following are a selection of articles generated by the Center, which are available on-line. For a complete list refer to the Cumberland Law Review: Christy, J.R., 2006: The ever-changing climate system, Cumberland Law Review, 36 No. 3, 493-504Christy, J.R., 2006: The ever-changing climate system, Cumberland Law Review, 36 No. 3, 493-504 Dolgin, Janet, Method, Mediations, and the Moral Dimensions of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, Cumberland Law Review, 35 No. 3Dolgin, Janet, Method, Mediations, and the Moral Dimensions of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, Cumberland Law Review, 35 No. 3 Nelson, L.Jack, Catholic Bioethics and the Case of Terry Schiavo, Cumberland Law Review, 35 No. 3Nelson, L.Jack, Catholic Bioethics and the Case of Terry Schiavo, Cumberland Law Review, 35 No. 3 Rabago, Karl, A Strategy For Developing Stationary Biodiesel Generation, Cumberland Law Review, 36 No. 3Rabago, Karl, A Strategy For Developing Stationary Biodiesel Generation, Cumberland Law Review, 36 No. 3 Shepherd, Lois, Shattering the Neutral Surrogate Myth in End of Life Decisionmaking: Terry Schiavo and Her Family Cumberland Law Review, 35 No. 3Shepherd, Lois, Shattering the Neutral Surrogate Myth in End of Life Decisionmaking: Terry Schiavo and Her Family Cumberland Law Review, 35 No. 3 Smolin, David, Does Bioethics Provide Answers? Secular and Religious Bioethics and Our Procreative Futures, Cumberland Law Review, 35 No. 3Smolin, David, Does Bioethics Provide Answers? Secular and Religious Bioethics and Our Procreative Futures, Cumberland Law Review, 35 No. 3 Smolin, David, Nontherapeutic Research with Children: The Virtues and Vices of Legal Uncertainty, 33 Cumberland Law Review 621 (2003). Smolin, Michael, Challenges and Opportunities for Energy Alternatives for Transportation in the United States, Cumberland Law Review, 36 No. 3Smolin, Michael, Challenges and Opportunities for Energy Alternatives for Transportation in the United States, Cumberland Law Review, 36 No. 3 Tomain, Joseph, Smart Energy Path: How Willie Nelson Saved The Planet, Cumberland Law Review, 36 No. 3Tomain, Joseph, Smart Energy Path: How Willie Nelson Saved The Planet, Cumberland Law Review, 36 No. 3 Weaver, Jacqueline, The Traditional Petroleum-Based Economy: An "Eventful" Future Cumberland Law Review, 36 No. 3Weaver, Jacqueline, The Traditional Petroleum-Based Economy: An “Eventful” Future Cumberland Law Review, 36 No. 3
Missing Girls of China and India, 2010 This Conference is being held on February 26, 2010 at Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama to discuss the causes and socio-economic impact of "missing girls" in China and India. "In China, approximately ten percent of females have disappeared from the population at birth in last generation alone. Similarly, about five percent of female are "missing" from India's population. Collectively, this indicates a loss of tens of millions of Chinese and Indian females which creates significant socioeconomic complications. The sex-ratio imbalances in China and India have grown worse despite successful economic development and pressures toward cultural modernization. Scholarship on "the missing girls" of China and India has been increasingly successful in documenting and identifying some of the most direct causes. The purpose of this symposium is to gather and urge a group of the leading scholars to discuss remedies to the problem of missing girls."
Overview - Valerie Hudson, Brigham Young University India - Sunil Khanna, Oregon State University China - Susan Greenhalgh and Wang Feng, University of California-Irvine
Transportation Energy Policy, 2009
This Conference was hosted on February 27, 2009 and its stated purpose was that: "The public in the United States and throughout much of the world has become keenly aware of the limitations of continued reliance on petroleum-based fuels. Concerns over diminishing supplies, growing demand, price instabilities, environmental impacts, international competition for limited resources, energy security, and the costs of foreign involvement necessitated by our "addiction to oil" have created an imperative toward renewable energy. Yet, some view the United States' first major venture into renewable fuels, corn-based ethanol, as a failure that has contributed to higher food prices and brings little overall environmental or supply gain. Political and popular rhetoric suggests that a technological fix, in forms such as second-generation biofuels, fuel cells, electric cars, or a hydrogen economy are just around the corner, and yet most estimates posit that petroleum based fuels will predominate for at least several more decades. President Barack Obama has promised a new and different energy policy. This conference, taking place a little more than month into the new administration, will look at the possibilities for transportation energy policy both for the United States and other nations. Upon examination, government has a limited set of tools it can use to promote a transition to renewable energy and promote energy conservation/efficiency. Options include subsidies or tax credits for renewable energy, taxing carbon-based energy, funding research, promoting/funding/designing for mass transit, renewable fuel standards, CAFÉ-fuel efficiency standards, and mandating that energy efficient/alternative energy cars be built in exchange for financial help for the car industry. These issues of supply, demand, price, security, nationalism, and environment occur within an interdependent world. Hence, this conference will look beyond the United States to transportation energy policy throughout the world."Transportation Energy Policy, Conference Brochure, 2009
Energy Futures - Professor Lakshman Guruswamy, University of Colorado Law School United States Energy Policy - Professor Joshua Fershee, University of North Dakota School of Law India's Energy Future Professor Deepa Badrinarayana, Chapman University School of Law Human Rights, Human Development, and Energy - Professor David Smolin, Cumberland School of Law, Samford University (focusing on the need to pursue low cost energy primarily because it is a human rights issue) Point/Counterpoint - Professor David Smolin (Cumberland/Samford) will moderate a discussion among all conference participants, inviting discussion by both conference participants and audience, on the hard questions and difficult choices facing both the United States and other nations in regard to transportation energy policy.
The Baby Market, 2008
The speakers for this event were:Faith and Politics - The Baby Market Michele Goodwin - visiting professor at University of Chicago Law School, chair-elect of the Association of American Law Schools section on law and medicine, and a fellow of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago. Judith Daar - California law professor and clinical professor of medicine, "Progress and Pitfalls in Emerging Reproductive Technologies"; Gregory Pence - University of Alabama at Birmingham philosophy professor and medical ethics specialist, "The Case for Non-Regulation"; David M. Smolin - Cumberland professor and international children's issues specialist, "Money, Markets and Intercountry Adoption." Smolin is director of the Center for Biotechnology, Law and Ethics. Arun Dohle - live commentary on a Danish public television documentary, "A Baby Business." Dohle was an adult adoptee and specialist on adoption corruption issues in India, was a consultant on the documentary.Times of India
Health Care Access, Equity, and Efficiency, 2007
This Conference was hosted on Thursday February 22, 2007 at Cumberland School of Law. The keynote speaker of the Conference was United States Representative Artur Davis (D) who spoke about the need for change in the current health care delivery system in the United States.Davis says health crisis growing 2.2.07 Alabama news - Artur Davis speaks at Biotech Conference His speech was delivered in part as a presentation of the Thurgood Marshall Lecture series sponsored by the Black Law Students Association at Cumberland.website Cumberland programs
The sponsors for the Symposium included the Center for Biotechnology, Law, and Ethics, Cumberland Law School, Samford University, the Cumberland Law Review, and Cumberland Law School's Chapter of the Black Law Students Association (BLSA)
The five panels were: Overview - L.Jack Nelson of Cumberland School of Law Equity is Efficient - John A. Nyman, Professor of Economics, University of Minnesota A Thurgood Marshall Lecture - U.S. Representative Artur Davis (D)