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M. L. Tina Stevens, Ph.D. (SFSU) and Diane Beeson, Ph.D. (CSUEB), representing the Alliance for Humane Biotechnology.

About the presentation: In 2004, Californians passed Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative.  The act committed an estimated $6 billion of taxpayers’ money and created the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine.  Not well understood is that the initiative prioritized research in human cloning, accelerating market eugenics and increasing the demand for cloning’s raw material: women’s eggs. Come hear a fascinating discussion of the implications of these developments for women’s health, for human reproduction, and for our human future.

Tina Stevens is an historian of U. S. history with a specialty in the History of Bioethics and Biotechnology. She received her PhD from the University of California at Berkeley where she was a Mellon Dissertation Fellow. She holds a masters degree in Jurisprudence and Social Policy from UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, where she specialized in Law, Medicine, and Society. She lectures in history at San Francisco State University and also has taught courses in U.S. history at California State University, East Bay, and in Bioethics and Society at UC Berkeley. Dr. Stevens was a visiting scholar at Anglia Polytechnic University, Cambridge, England and at UC Berkeley's Center for the Study of Law and Society. She has served as a consultant for the Judicial Council of California/Administrative Office of the Courts, and the National Center for State Courts, both located in San Francisco. Her book, Bioethics in America: Origins and Cultural Politics (Johns Hopkins University Press, paperback, 2003) was nominated for both the Frederick Jackson Turner Book Prize in American History and the History of Science in America Book Prize.

Diane Beeson is Interim Chair of the Department of Sociology and Social Services at California State University, East Bay. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, San Francisco, where she specialized in medical sociology. She was a Pew post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco's Institute for Health Policy Studies from 1985-1987. Her main research interest for nearly three decades has been the social challenges of new reproductive technologies. For much of this time she was affiliated with UC Berkeley's Institute for the Study of Social Change researching social implications of genetic testing. In 1996 and 1997 she was a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Center for Genomics, Ethics and Society. She has served as a consultant on projects related to genetic testing for numerous organizations, including the National Society of Genetic Counselors, National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Department of Energy. She has served on peer review committees for the National Human Genome Research Institute and has authored numerous articles in professional journals and anthologies.