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The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame will mark the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade in Washington, D.C., on Thursday with an expert roundtable discussion on how best to care for and protect mothers, babies, and families in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision. “Building a Civilization of Love” will bring together experts in law, medicine, social science, public health, and social service to discuss the most important opportunities for and challenges to protecting the intrinsic equal dignity of every member of the human family following the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Dobbs. 

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O. Carter Snead, professor of law at Notre Dame Law School and director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, will receive the 2021 Expanded Reason Award in Research for his book What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics. Now in its fifth year, the Expanded Reason Award is administered by the University Francisco de Vitoria, in conjunction with the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation, and recognizes excellence in efforts to “broaden the horizons of rationality, based on the dialogue of sciences and disciplines with philosophy and theology.”

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The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture has released a video titled "March On, Notre Dame!" that highlights the University's commitment to building a culture of life, both on-campus and in the wider public square, to coincide with the virtual March for Life on Jan. 29.

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Inspired by Pope Francis's observation that Christians "cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life," the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture will host a webinar discussion on racism and the culture of life on July 28 at 8:00 p.m. (EDT).

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In the Queen’s Birthday Honours announced on June 10, 2019, John M. Finnis, a permanent senior distinguished research fellow of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and the Biolchini Family Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, was appointed as a Companion [AC] of the Order of Australia. The honor was granted with the citation, “For eminent service to the law, and to education, to legal theory and philosophical enquiry, and as a leading jurist, academic and author.”

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O. Carter Snead, the William P. and Hazel B. White Director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, will present the 16th Annual John Collins Harvey Lecture, hosted by the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University on April 25. His talk is titled, “Remembering the Body: Towards a More Human Public Bioethics,” based on the themes of his book manuscript by the same name.

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More than 750 scholars and guests are gathering at the University of Notre Dame for the Center for Ethics and Culture’s 18th annual interdisciplinary fall conference, “Through Every Human Heart,” November 9–11. The conference features 112 presentations that consider the perennial problem of good and evil in our world.

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p(image-right). !/assets/52249/85x/snead_resized.jpg(O. Carter Snead)! Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture director and professor of law Carter Snead will deliver the inaugural University of Florence “Law and Justice Lecture” on May 30 in Florence, Italy. His lecture, “Three Regulatory Models for Stem Cell Research,” will analyze and contrast the U.S. government’s federal funding policies under Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama as a means of exploring the complexities of American governance of science, medicine, and biotechnology in the name of ethical goods.

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