Alverno College is hosting a lecture by Alice Dreger, Ph.D., on March 2 from 6 - 7:30
p.m. The topic, “Should We Try to Engineer Physical ‘Normality' in Children?” looks
at whether doctors should intervene when a child has a body that challenges social
norms. Examples of these “normalizing” procedures include separating conjoined twins,
surgeons operating on children born with atypical genitals, and endocrinologists offering
growth hormone to healthy children who are short. The lecture, which takes place in
the Bucyrus Conference Center, is free and open to the public.
Dreger is a bioethicist, author and featured speaker at TED Talks. Her recent book,“Galileo's
Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justicein Science,” draws
on her background as an historian of medicine and patient advocate, and was named
an Editor's Choice by New York Times Book Review. This lecture will look at the ethics of “normalizing” interventions, and offer suggestions
for what might work better for patients.
Published on February 16, 2016 | Categories: Newsroom migrated press release