As the year 2015 comes to a close, we at The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture look back over a year of involvement in a number of important bioethics issues.
1) We were there when the Tennessee Senate Health and Welfare Committee met in Legislative Plaza Room 12 on 9 June 2015 to hear testimony regarding “Death with Dignity,” otherwise known as Physician-assisted Suicide (P-AS). We heard the testimony of John Jay Hooker and others promoting the bill. The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture stayed after a prominent news anchor and her television crew left the hearing. We stayed so we could listen to a number of testimonies pointing out the dangers of the bill under consideration.
2) We were there when letters to the editors of The Tennessean and The Jackson Sun needed to be written to counter P-AS proposals.
3) We were there to defend human dignity and promote human flourishing through university and community lectures in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois.
4) We were there for the John Jay Hooker trial — where he and his legal team promoted physician-assisted suicide — in Chancery Court on 10 July 2015. Again, we stayed for the entire proceeding.
5) We were there to give training to a university student during his internship with our organization.
6) We were there for a University of Michigan interview project regarding three-parent embryos on 15 December.
These were but a few of the endeavors of The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture during 2015. We have been steadily building for eleven years, and plan to expand our reach to a number of colleges and universities in 2016. Your support of time, talent, and treasure is vital to our success. Please consider us in your year-end giving, and in your calendars in the New Year.
