Drew Faust, Dean of the of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, opens this two-day conference on reproductive
health in the 21st century by announcing the supreme significance of the topic: "What a culture believes about conception reveals how it
defines its world." She also explains that the speakers will be "exploring how biological phenomena come to be socially, culturally,
technologically, politically, and morally constructed."
This conference takes place ten years after the groundbreaking conference in Cairo about international reproductive
health. Faust comments on the interdisciplinary reach of this conference, as well as its focus on issues of gender rights, definitions,
and differences, noting that these issues "make it especially appropriate for the Radcliffe Institute."
Barbara Grosz, Dean of Science at Radcliffe, welcomes the audience, emphasizing the importance of the issue of
reproductive health. "It's a topic that is broad in scope. . . It challenges span space and time." Addressing these issues "requires the
expertise and thinking of many disciplines. . . not only science, but science in context."
Grosz notes that the panelists and speakers are people from diverse fields with different perspectives and a broad range
of expertise. They will present "challenging problems" and "exciting research and scholarship," providing information for future
informed debate. The topic of reproductive health has an expansive scope, encompassing technology, ethics, health, and well-being across
generations throughout the world. The conference will address the scientific, social scientific, and ethical problems that require
cross-disciplinary knowledge.
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