Sacred Heart Mercy Health Care Center and the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Michigan, are pleased to announce their annual St. Luke’s lecture, scheduled for October 20, 2022, featuring Dr. William Hurlbut. In his presentation entitled, The Challenge and Opportunity of Genome Editing: Scientific and Ethical Considerations, Dr. Hurlbut will speak about the ongoing developments in molecular biology in gene editing to cure illnesses. Medical technology is rapidly heading into the area of gene editing using CRISPR technology, but there are ethical concerns.
Although this special event featuring Dr. Hurlbut has been planned for some time, his coming is particularly poignant given the threats to human life that are being proposed as “reproductive freedom” in “Proposal 3,” which Michigan voters will find on the ballot it on November 8. The so-called “Reproductive Freedom for All” proposed constitutional amendment will enshrine abortion, sterilization, and even gender transition treatment for all, including youth, even in circumstances in which parents and guardians would be uninformed, as a constitutional right in the Michigan Constitution.
At the heart of the ethical and moral questions surrounding CRISPR is the use of human germ line cells (sperm and ova and stem cells) and embryos as mere subjects of experimentation to further our knowledge. Although we are finding important therapeutic potential with this technology on somatic cells, there is the risk of changing the human genome in these experiments and the further risk of destroying individual lives through the experimentation using human embryos.
Organizers of the event hope that bringing this important topic to the hearts and minds of individuals will help to bring about a more robust debate about how this technology may be used in a beneficial way without experimentation using human embryos.
Date: October 20, 2022
Time: 6:30 PM dinner with lecture to start at 7:30 PM
Register for the event at administrator@sacredheartmercy.org
Livestream link will be sent to those who register at the email above.
For more information, please call 989-463-3451.