On the Identity Trail's Ian Kerr has been invited to speak at the Visions National Health Law Conference in Banff, Alberta on Friday, November 9.  The two day national health law conference will focus on the future of health care, presenting an exceptionally unique opportunity to bring together predictions from a wide range of perspectives during an unprecedented time of change for the Canadian health care system.

Ian's presentation is titled "The technologies of (trans)humanist medicine."  The increasing ability to modify, augment, and enhance the human body beyond species-typical boundaries is among the most significant recent advances in science and technology. Emerging technologies not only offer new tools for restoring function to injured bodies, they also offer the ability to surpass species-typical function and performance. As enhancement technologies are perfected, they create new possibilities for treating those who are already said to be ‘healthy’, making them ‘better than well’.  As such, a broad adoption of enhancement technologies risks a dangerous shift in the values underlying the healthcare agenda.  In an era where health goals are blurring the lines between therapy and enhancement and medical interventions are becoming more and more technology dependent, Ian examines the drivers of enhancement-based health through an investigation of emerging cybernetic and information technologies and their underlying values. In his presentation, Ian argues that the ‘convergence’ and ‘innovation’ rhetoric recently re-emerging in the health sector presupposes a dangerous philosophy that constitutes a further erosion of humanist ideals in medicine.

Click here for more information on the conference.