Note: This course satisfies the Perspective course requirement.
This course will deal with challenges from the advances of biological sciences, how law has responded to them, and how it should respond in the future. Philosophical, religious, political, economic and ethical approaches to the formation of policy will be discussed. There is no prerequisite for this course.
The topics to be covered, depending on time, will include: science basics; how intellectual property laws have evolved to serve biotechnology, and whether property rights unduly hinder research; open approaches to research and innovation in the life sciences as alternatives to closed, proprietary models; patents on higher life forms; the use of technology and contract to impose "private law" outcomes; privacy rights in genetic information, secondary research uses, and issues of ownership of genetic information, tissues, and discoveries; Canada's Assisted Human Reproduction Act, and the debates over human cloning (reproductive and therapeutic) and stem cell research; genetically modified organisms, including foods, and the regulatory and other access to market barriers they face; philosophical and ethical debates over, and legal issues concerning, the improvement of the human species and its members, by genetic, silicon-based or nanotechnological modification; appropriate uses of regulation, legislation, and oversight bodies like research ethics boards; the use of government fiat, through restrictions on government funding, to inhibit certain kinds of research; the regulation of biological research facilities; business practices and legal strategies in the biotech community; medical euthanasia (MAiD); and the role of governments in encouraging wealth and well-being gains in society through direct or indirect subsidy of biotechnological research.
Three very current issues we may consider are the implications of advances in gene editing, such as CRISPR-Cas9, where the science outruns the public policy; the recent pandemic, where public policy had to be made in advance of the science, and medical euthanasia (MAiD), where public policy and science would seem at odds.
A note about computers: While computers are permitted in this course, we would like to discourage their use during class except when used to make your presentation, or perhaps to quickly look up a particular reference or fact, or to make a few notes arising from the discussion. Our hope is to generate knowing, thoughtful discussion around each topic considered, much improved by having reviewed the materials beforehand.
