Boston University's Schiavo conference

Reading this announcement, I was reminded of the claim that, in order to be a "great" university -- or, perhaps, a university at all -- an institution of higher education ought to avoid constructing an identity built on stances toward the great issues of the day. 

BOSTON UNIVERSITY CONFERENCE TO EXPLORE LANDMARK SCHIAVO CASE

            One year later, experts discuss lessons learned, where to go from here

                            March 31, 2006

                           Boston University

      A year ago in March, the Terri Schiavo case riveted the

      nation. Who would decide the fate of the 41-year-old brain-

      damaged Florida woman who had been languishing in a

      permanent vegetative state for years: her husband, her

      parents, a guardian or a judge? The debate and struggle for

      control entangled state and federal courts, Florida's

      legislature and governor, the U.S. Congress, the president

      of the United States, and even the Vatican.

      A year after Schiavo's death, Boston University's School of

      Law and School of Public Health are co-sponsoring "The

      Terri Schiavo Case: One Year Later," a one-day conference

      that will consider the legal, medical, ethical and

      political lessons learned from this epic case.

      The conference will be held March 31, from 8:30 a.m. to 5

      p.m., at the Boston University George Sherman Union

      Auditorium, 775 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, Mass.

      Conference organizer Wendy Mariner notes that the one-year

      anniversary coincides with changes in both the Congress and

      the U.S. Supreme Court that could dramatically affect laws

      on living wills, surrogate decision-making, physician-

      assisted suicide and tube feeding. "We hope this conference

      will help focus and inform the critical public debate about

      patient rights at the end of life," said Mariner, who is a

      professor at BU's schools of law, medicine, and public

      health.

      U.S. Rep. Barney Frank will keynote the conference, which

      will include experts who played a role in deciding,

      debating, or covering the case and the issues it raised.

      Frank, who represents the Massachusetts Fourth

      Congressional District, led an unsuccessful but insightful

      and informative floor fight in Congress against emergency

      legislation that authorized federal court review of the

      Schiavo case.

      Frank will be joined by two others who played pivotal roles

      in the case: trial court Judge George Greer, who will be

      awarded the Pike Prize at the conference, and the nation's

      leading expert on permanent vegetative states, Dr. Ronald

      Cranford of the University of Minnesota, who examined Terri

      Schiavo for the trial court and whose diagnosis of her is

      considered definitive.

      Also speaking at the conference will be medical ethicist

      George Annas, the Edward R. Utley Professor of Health Law,

      Bioethics and Human Rights at BUSPH and Professor of Law at

      the Boston University School of Law. Annas wrote an

      influential article about the Schiavo case that appeared in

      the New England Journal of Medicine two days after the

      Congress passed the "Schiavo law."

      CBS News Chief Legal Analyst Andrew D. Cohen, JD, who

      covered the Schiavo case for CBS, will weigh in on lessons

      for the media. Associate Professor of Law Allan H.

      Macurdy, JD, BU School of Law, who also heads the

      University's office of disability services, will discuss

      competing conceptions of disability, discrimination, and

      compassion as they play out in protecting the rights and

      welfare of patients.

"Even the Vatican"!