Speakers and Events

What if one of the world’s most admired corporations is also its deadliest criminal enterprise?

Dov Fox Herzog Research Professor of Law; Director, Center for Health Law Policy & Bioethics Join us as Professor Fox discusses his new book, The Conscience of Care: Navigating Health in the Culture Wars. Pitched battles over abortion, puberty blockers, and assisted suicide have turned American healthcare into a legal minefield. Faced with mounting restrictions on medical practice, doctors and nurses who follow their conscience to provide standard treatments risk being fined, fired, or even imprisoned, while clinicians who conscientiously deny evidence-based care are shielded without condition from any such consequences. Dov Fox argues that by ceding the moral vocabulary of conscience to refusers alone, the lopsided law of medical conscience selectively burdens providers, drives vulnerable patients underground, and impoverishes the dynamic pluralism of medicine. The Conscience of Care  lays bare the broken system of medical conscience and sets out to fix it. Fox canvases a landscape of contested services that include IVF, IUDs, opioids, psychedelics, organ transplants, and advance directives. He develops practical reforms that rebalance conscience protection by introducing measured safeguards for providers and scaling back the categorical refuge afforded to refusers.  The Conscience of Care articulates a bold vision of medicine that reclaims the lost promise of conscience to bridge social divides on matters of life and death, impairment and identity. Advance praise : A cutting-edge ... model [of] respect across political disagreement. —Reva Siegel, Yale Law School [G]roundbreaking.... Mandatory reading for anyone concerned about medical ethics and the evolving roles of government in healthcare. —Anita L. Allen, University of Pennsylvania Law School Elegantly written and meticulously reasoned, this book ... presents a bold, urgent vision for resolving the[] pressing controversies of our time. —Julian Savulescu, University of Oxford Dov Fox’s pioneering work ... could not be more timely. —I. Glenn Cohen, Harvard Law School

Join us for an evening with USD Law Professor Dov Fox, to discuss his audiobook, Donor 9623, about reproductive medicine, mental health, the power of law — and its limits — when the ones we count on the most let us down the hardest. It's a haunting tale of human resilience, the fragility of family, and what it takes to forgive the unforgivable. The eight-episode Part One was named Audible's top audiobook and podcast of the year, with a concluding Part Two (five episodes) released in 2023.  The panel discussion will be moderated by Margaret Dalton   - Vice Dean and Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law Panelists: Dr. Jillian Tullis Professor of Communication; and Director of Biomedical Ethics, University of San Diego Dr. Jo Ellen Patterson Professor of Marital and Family Therapy, University of San Diego, and Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Psychiatry, University of California San Diego  Dr. Diane Keeling Associate Professor of Communication, University of San Diego and Producer of the podcast There's More From the publisher: When scores of aspiring parents turned to the fertility industry to start families, they chose a remarkable young man to be the biological father of their children. He was a music prodigy and gifted athlete who had a genius IQ, movie star looks, and perfect health.  Except it was all a lie.  In this tour de force of investigative reporting, host Dov Fox unravels the case of Donor 9623, examining the complex forces and competing agendas behind the biggest reproductive hoax of our time. The story is dark, propulsive - and in an unexpected turn - hopeful. This Audible Original exposes the billion-dollar industry that creates hundreds of thousands of babies every year, through unprecedented access to its key players - and to Donor 9623 himself.  The 8-episode series raises hard questions about what we want when we set out to have kids - and what happens when we don't get it. It places us in the grip of life lived with crushing uncertainty. And unsettles our deepest understanding of what it means to be human.  About Professor of Law Dov Fox Professor Dov Fox is University Professor, Herzog Research Professor of Law and Director, Center for Health Law Policy & Bioethics at the University of San Diego. He's published more than 75 articles in leading journals of law (e.g., Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal), medicine (e.g., New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association), and public health (e.g., Foreign Affairs, American Journal of Public Health). His scholarship has been featured in popular outlets including The Atlantic, The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Professor Fox has also provided on-air analysis for CNN, ABC News, CBS This Morning, NBC Nightly News, and the Today show.  His latest academic books are "Birth Rights and Wrongs: How Medicine and Technology are Remaking Reproduction and the Law" (Oxford University Press, 2019) and "The Conscience of Care: Navigating Health in the Culture Wars" (Harvard University Press, forthcoming, 2024-25). 

The Dobbs Leak, the Supreme Court, and the Future of Roe v. Wade,  co-sponsored by the new Center for Employment and Labor Policy and by the Center for Health Law Policy & Bioethics Please join us for a Noon panel discussion of the leaked draft opinion in the Dobbs case. and its implications for constitutional law, women's equality, and the institutional stature of the Supreme Court. The panel will be conducted via Zoom and registration is required to receive a secure, personalized link. The panel discussion will be followed by a moderated Q&A. The Dobbs Leak, the Supreme Court, and the Future of  Roe v. Wade  is sponsored by USD School of Law's new Center for Employment and Labor Policy  (CELP) and  Center for Health Law Policy and Bioethics (CHLPB). The event will include a short talk by each panelist as well as an extensive Q&A session. Moderator Mila Sohoni , Associate Dean of Faculty; University Professor; Professor of Law Panelists Dean and C. Hugh Friedman Professor of Law Robert A. Schapiro is an internationally recognized scholar of federalism and a former clerk for Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court. His talk will draw on his experience as a Supreme Court clerk to contextualize whether and how this leak may damage the Court as an institution. Warren Distinguished Professor of Law Don Dripps is recognized as a leading expert in criminal law and procedure. His talk will discuss the Alito draft's treatment of the right to privacy, substantive due process, and stare decisis Herzog Endowed Scholar and Professor of Law Dov Fox  is the Director of the Center for Health Law Policy and Bioethics. He is a renowned expert on health law and bioethics. His talk will cover the law at issue in Dobbs and the Alito draft's overturning of Roe and Casey. Warren Distinguished Professor of Law Orly Lobel is the Director of the Center for Employment and Labor Policy. Lobel is one of the nation's foremost experts on Employment and Labor Law. Lobel's talk will explore the policy implications of state restrictions on abortion or contraception rights for women's equal participation in the workforce. Background Materials Roe  v. Wade;  Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania  v. Casey;  Dobbs  v. Jackson Women's Health Organization;  Alito Draft