Events

Upcoming events

“Novel Beings”: A Practical Hierarchy for Moral Status (WIP)

2 May 2024 | 16:00 - 17:30 | School of Law and Social Justice Building

Speaker: Dr David Lawrence, Assistant Professor in Biolaw at Durham University.

Emerging biotechnologies including synthetic genomics, developments in cerebral organoid, and future human embryo models are likely to create new forms of morally valuable life. This will pose global challenges for society and for law as regards the status of these ‘novel beings’, their protections, their obligations, and our own. Existing law is proving insufficient to manage the same issues already arising in the context of animal status and personhood cases, leading to ethical and social quandaries (Lawrence, Brazier 2018). This talk will outline the next steps of work I have been developing over a number of years as a founding member of the Novel Beings Network. The core goal is to determine the most pragmatic means of calculating moral standing for both the advent of novel beings and for existing cases around animal personhood, in order to best mitigate the serious challenges for society that these can bring. An important element in this process will be to evaluate the wide range of metrics that may be applicable, including morally significant cognitive capacities, complexity science and emergent consciousness, interests, rationality, responsibility, and relationality. I will (ultimately!) propose a practical hierarchy of moral status that can provide for this need, with an actionable set of standards that can be applied in both law and policy.

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Past event highlights

Health Law and Regulation Unit - 10 Year Anniversary Conference

28 June 2023 | School of Law and Social Justice Building, University of Liverpool

HLRU hosted an afternoon conference to celebrate its 10-year anniversary, and in the evening, Professor Sally Sheldon, University of Bristol, gave the annual Healthcare Law and Regulation Unit (HLRU) Public Lecture.

Medico-Legal Regulation of Sex and Gender Identities in Childhood

23 November 2022 | Rendall Building, University of Liverpool

A workshop hosted by the Health Law and Regulation Unit, Feminist Legal Research and Action Network, and European Children's Rights Unit.

• Dr Aileen Kennedy, University of New England, presented on 'The Brain-Sex Binary in Law'.
• Dr Fae Gardland, University of Manchester, and Dr Ed Horowicz, University of Liverpool, presented on 'From Clinical to Judicial Decision-Making, and Back Again in Bell v Tavistock? Preparing for the Legacy of Court Involvement in Gender Care for Minors'. 

An Uncharitable Alliance: Mermaids v. Charity Commission and LGB Alliance

11 November 2022 | University of Liverpool

In this case, Mermaids (a charity representing and advocating for transgender, nonbinary and gender-diverse children, young people and their families) challenges the charitable status given to the LGB Alliance. Mermaids alleges that ‘LGB Alliance is not actually tackling problems facing lesbian, gay and bisexual people, but rather seeking to prevent the resolution of problems facing transgender persons’.

In other words, they have an ‘anti-trans’ rather than ‘pro-LGB’ focus, with many of their campaigns particularly targeting the affirmation of the gender identity of trans children. This, Mermaids argues, is not a charitable purpose within the meaning of the relevant legislation.

Postgraduate Bioethics Conference (PGBC 2021)

24 - 25 June 2021 | Online

• Visit the Postgraduate Bioethics site to watch back all sessions from the 2021 conference.

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