By Mary Deutscher

Noted bioethicist Margaret Somerville addressed a crowd of approximately 150 people at the 2012 Woodrow Lloyd lecture held on February 16th at the University of Regina.

Somerville, a professor at McGill University in Montreal and the founding director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics & the Law, presented her theory that every society has shared values which bind its members together.  In the past, these values were shared in a religious context; however today, in a secular, multicultural Canada, this is no longer possible. 

According to Somerville, healthcare has become the new forum in which Canadians discuss their shared values because it encompasses the only experiences that all Canadians have in common: birth and death.

“Ethics is the process of deciding which values take priority,” stated Somerville, who went on to say that there is a major divide in Canada over whether respect for life or respect for individual autonomy should be the dominant value.

Somerville stressed that, “there is still a place for religion in our society” and that religious voices need to be heard in this new healthcare centred forum as Canadians discuss topics such as euthanasia and artificial human reproduction.

A small group of students arrived with signs to protest Somerville’s conservative views, but they remained respectful throughout her talk, which did not touch on the controversial topic of homosexual marriage.

A question and answer period was followed by a book signing.

The Woodrow Lloyd lecture is funded by the Woodrow Lloyd Trust Fund in honour of the eighth Saskatchewan premiere.  It is offered every Winter and features a scholar, writer, thinker, and/or activist, who speaks on issues of direct relevance to Saskatchewan.