Biotechnologies such as genetic modification, genetic testing, cloning and stem cell research are significant areas of research both in New Zealand and internationally. While these developments promise to bring benefits to areas such as healthcare and economic development, they also significantly challenge current ways of understanding nature and who we are as humans, and raise serious questions about the type of world we want to live in now and in the future. One of the challenges is how we go about constructively resolving these questions.
The New Zealand Schools’ Debating Council is pleased to announce that Toi te Taiao: the Bioethics Council have agreed to become regional partners. The role of the Bioethics Council is to promote public dialogue about the issues raised by biotechnology, and partnering with the New Zealand Schools’ Debating Council is one way of doing just that.
At each Regional Championship across the country this year there will be a topic focused on the questions raised by a biotechnology.
For more information on the work of the Bioethics Council and on the issues that you might be debating visit www.bioethics.org.nz.
