Biotechnology, Disability, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves

Description

Dr. Nathaniel Comfort, a professor of the History of Medicine, will interview author George Estreich about his new book Fables and Futures, a set of essays on biotechnology, disability, and bioethics. Estreich will also do a reading and book-signing.

From next-generation prenatal tests, to virtual children, to the genome-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9, new biotechnologies grant us unprecedented power to predict and shape future people. That power implies a question about belonging: which people, which variations, will we welcome? How will we square new biotech advances with the real but fragile gains for people with disabilities -- especially when their voices are all but absent from the conversation?