SPRING LECTURE SERIES FEATURES CLONING DEBATE

Old Dominion University begins its Spring 2002 President's Lecture Series with a debate on cloning between two internationally esteemed bioethicists, Gregory Pence and Nigel M. De S. Cameron.

"Cloning: A Debate" will be held at 8 p.m. Jan. 24 in the Mills Godwin Jr. Life Sciences Building Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

The participants will address such issues as "Is It Ethical to: Clone a Human? Bioengineer Plants and Animals? Harvest Organs from a Human Clone?"

Pence is a professor and medical ethicist in the School of Medicine and Department of Philosophy at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, where he has taught for nearly 25 years. One of the few bioethicists to oppose President Clinton's call for a federal law against human cloning, Pence is author of the book "Who's Afraid of Human Cloning?," which received enthusiastic reviews in more than a dozen journals, magazines and newspapers, and has been published in Newsweek, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Pence has also written "Classic Cases in Medical Ethics: Accounts of the Cases That Shaped Medical Ethics" and edited "Classic Works in Medical Ethics: Core Philosophical Readings." A native of the Washington, D.C. area, Pence graduated from the College of William and Mary and earned his doctorate from New York University.

Cameron has published widely in theology and bioethics and is the founding editor of the international journal Ethics and Medicine, now in its 16th year. He has written and edited several books on bioethics, including "Death Without Dignity: Euthanasia in Perspective" and "The New Medicine: Life and Death After Hippocrates." He is a former provost and distinguished professor at Trinity International University in Deerfield, Ill.

Cameron has combined higher education leadership with experience in nonprofit management and has chaired several boards, including the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity in Bannockburn, Ill., and the Centre for Bioethics and Public Policy in London. Educated at Cambridge and Edinburgh, Cameron has more than 15 years' experience consulting in ethics and public policy. His focus on the relation of ethics and public policy has led to frequent appearances on television news programs as well as meetings with members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He has also been invited to testify at Congressional hearings on human cloning.

For more information, call the Office of University Relations at 683-3114.