Justice in an Unjust World: A Tribute to the Work of Karen LeBacqz as foundational to Bioethics and Religion

Karen LeBacqz was one of the first women in the field of American bioethics, serving on the first Presidential Bioethics Commission under Jimmy Carter, writing the Belmont report, the National Commission on Human Subjects, serving as an advisor to the projects in biotechnology, stem cell research, and the Human Genome Project, and publishing six books, among them Six Theories of Justice and Justice in an Unjust World. She was instrumental in structuring some of the first policies to regulate science, and critical to advancing theological arguments within our field. As a professor at the Graduate Theological Union, she taught a generation of scholars, stressing always the need to foreground questions of justice in bioethics. Yet, her work is relatively unknown in comparison to the men with whom she served: Callahan, Jonson, Englehardt, Brody, Gaylin, and Jameton. This panel will reflect both on her contributions to the field and think carefully about the question of how and who is central to our developing canon.