CENTER SPONSORS STRATEGIC NATIONAL GATHERINGS
Chicago. Convening to discuss the challenges of managed care, resource allocation, and other ethical stresses on the caregiver-patient relationship, hundreds of people gathered together July 17-19 on the Deerfield, Illinois campus of Trinity International University for the Center’s fourth annual bioethics conference on “The Changing Face of Health Care.” The conference was co-sponsored by Christian Medical & Dental Society, Christian Legal Society, Nurses Christian Fellowship, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Outstanding presenters from medicine, nursing, health care administration, law, business, education, and the church addressed the numerous changes taking place in health care today and their impact on various groups including poor and minority communities. Many conference participants expressed special enthusiasm for the opportunity to meet an array of committed Christians in their own and other fields, both at the conference and during the week-long bioethics training institutes that included the conference (see back page for information on next year’s conference and Institutes). Audio and video tapes of selected presentations are now available (see order form pages).
Portland. The Center also recently co-sponsored a strategic conference to equip health care professionals as well as their pastors and priests (and, ultimately, their various constituencies) to engage the physician-assisted suicide debate. Held September 5-7 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, the conference focused on the upcoming ballot initiative, Measure 51, which will be put before Oregon voters in November. Center Fellow, Board Member, and Journal Editor C. Ben Mitchell joined a stellar national array of speakers for the enthusiastically-received event. Last year Oregonians narrowly passed a measure which would have legalized physician-assisted suicide. The Oregon Senate voted June 9, 1997 to remand the issue to the voters. In light of this summer’s Supreme Court decisions—which found no Constitutionally-protected right to assisted death—Oregon voters will have the opportunity to recon sider the issue this November. Measure 51 would overturn previous legislation and would make Oregon unique in its legal sanction of the practice (see back page for upcoming regional conferences).