O. Carter Snead, the William P. and Hazel B. White Director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, will present the 16th Annual John Collins Harvey Lecture, hosted by the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University on April 25, 2019. His talk is entitled "Remembering the Body: Towards a More Human Public Bioethics," based on the themes of his book manuscript by the same name (under contract with Harvard University Press).
The Harvey Lecture was established in 2003 in honor of longtime medical practitioner and professor of medicine John Collins Harvey, M.D., Ph.D. The prestigious endowed lecture has previously been delivered by eminent experts in the fields of ethics and health care including Cardinal Francis George, Leon R. Kass, Daniel Callahan, Sr. Carol Keehan, and Cardinal Godfried Danneels.
“I am deeply humbled to join the array of luminaries who have delivered the Harvey Lecture before me,” Snead said. “It is a special honor to contribute to the work of the Pellegrino Center. Dr. Ed Pellegrino was a giant in the field of medical ethics and a treasured friend and mentor.” Snead served with Pellegrino as Permanent Observer for the United States to the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee on Bioethics in Strasbourg, France. Snead and Pellegrino also served together at the United Nations Education, Science, and Culture Organization (UNESCO), with Snead leading the U.S. delegation for the negotiation of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights while Pellegrino served as an independent expert on UNESCO’s International Bioethics Committee. Snead succeeded Pellegrino as a member of that body from 2004-2008.
Snead is the William P. and Hazel B. White Director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, Professor of Law in the Law School, and Concurrent Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. Professor Snead is one of the world’s leading experts on public bioethics – the governance of science, medicine, and technology in the name of ethical goods. He has published over fifty journal articles, book chapters, and essays on abortion, embryo research, neuroethics, assisted reproduction, end of life decision-making, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. His articles have appeared in such publications as the New York University Law Review, the Harvard Law Review Forum, the Vanderbilt Law Review, Constitutional Commentary, the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics, the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, and Political Science Quarterly. He is the editor of two book series with the University of Notre Dame Press, including “Catholic Ideas for a Secular World” and “Notre Dame Studies in Medical Ethics.”
Prior to joining the Notre Dame faculty, Snead served as General Counsel to President Bush’s Council on Bioethics (chaired by Leon R. Kass). In 2016, Pope Francis appointed him to the Pontifical Academy for Life, which advises the Vatican on culture of life issues. He is also an elected fellow of The Hastings Center, the oldest independent bioethics research institute in the world.