Holly Tucker: Blood in the Scientific Revolution

             Dr. Cory Labrecque, scholar and lecturer in the Bioethics graduate program housed at the Center for Ethics, described Holly Tucker first as a "gifted story-teller." Dr. Tucker, an Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University, spoke on the controversies that were sparked in 17th century France by the earliest blood experiments. The lecture was presented at the Center for Ethics in collaboration with the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University and the Emory Center for Transfusion and Cellular Therapies.   
             Although Labrecque does not specialize in issues directly related to blood, Tucker's presentation was effectively interdisciplinary, sparking the interest of audience members from many academic disciplines. Labrecque found "dimensions of Bioethics" in the descriptions of decisions made about blood experiments. Tucker illustrated that decisions in transfusions and transplants were closely related to autonomy and personhood. The information that Tucker shared inspired questions about the kinds of patients that participated and their religious values. Tucker expatiated controversies that arose about the ethical differences in treating humans and animals. The lecture was especially insightful as blood experiments reveal critical tensions in the interplay between religion, science and history.

Join the conversation: Do religious values have a critical impact on the average individual's medical decisions?