February 18, 2010 - The problem of the “Missing Girls” of China and India and possible solutions and remedies is the topic of this year’s biotechnology symposium at Samford University Friday, Feb. 26. The program will highlight human rights violations and the large-scale elimination of females from the populations of China and India, where sex-selective abortion is widely practiced.
The daylong program, hosted by the Center for Biotechnology, Law and Ethics at Samford’s Cumberland School of Law, will begin at 8:50 a.m. in the moot courtroom of Robinson Hall law building. The public is invited free of charge.
Speakers are scholars and specialists in a variety of areas related to the topic.
Participants are University of California-Irvine anthropology professor Susan Greenhalgh, whose research focuses on China’s population control policies; Brigham Young University political science professor Valerie M. Hudson, author of 'Bare Branches: Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population'; Oregon State University anthropology professor Sunil K. Khanna, a specialist in the use of reproductive technology for prenatal sex determination and practices of sex selection in urbanizing north India; and UC-Irvine sociology department chair Wang Feng, a specialist in social and demographic change in China and social inequality in post-socialist societies.
Biotechnology center director and law professor David M. Smolin, will serve as facilitator and moderator. He is a specialist in issues such as intercountry adoption, child labor and children’s rights, constitutional reproduction issues, and law and religion.
The symposium’s co-sponsors, along with the biotechnology center, are Cumberland’s Christian Legal Society, Law Review, Women in Law, and the Frances Marlin Mann Center for Ethics and Leadership at Samford.
For information, call Smolin at (205) 726-2418 or check the website at: www.Cumberland.Samford.edu/biotech.