Pitt's Women's History Month Speaker Mary Lyndon Shanley To Discuss Ethical Issues in Adoption and Assisted Reproduction

March 6, 2003

PITTSBURGH—Mary Lyndon Shanley, professor of political science at Vassar College, will deliver two lectures on Pitt's Oakland campus to commemorate Women's History Month.

The first talk, "Choosing Children: Ethical Issues in Adoption and Assisted Reproduction," will take place at 3:15 p.m. March 12 in Room 208B of the Cathedral of Learning. Shanley's lecture will cover secrecy and race-matching, how much alternative families should try to imitate traditional families, and which perspectives policy makers should consider most important.

At noon on March 13, in the second-floor auditorium of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, 3811 O'Hara St., Shanley will discuss "Making Babies: Should There Be an Open Market and Anonymous Donation of Human Eggs and Sperm?" for the Bioethics and Health Law Grand Rounds Presentation.

Shanley is the author of Making Babies, Making Families: What Matters Most in a New Age of Reproductive Technology, Adoption, Surrogacy, and Same-Sex and Single Parents' Rights (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001). She has written several other books on feminist issues, and her articles have appeared in such journals as Columbia Law Review and Political Theory. She has worked to develop services for battered women in her community and has served as chair of the American Political Science Association's Committee on the Status of Women.

The Pitt Women's Studies Program sponsors her appearance.

###

3/6/03/mgc