The University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law 

proudly presents

Family, Privacy, Secrets & the Law

Book Signing and Roundtable

This two day conference engages at the intersections of medicine, criminal law, family law, and constitutional law. Roundtable participants will chart contemporary issues that span genetic privacy, disclosure of parental identity in assisted reproduction cases and DNA conscription to domestic violence and child sexual abuse. 

Schedule

Thursday, March 7, 2013

5:00 pm - 6:00 pm - Book Reading and Signing: Jonathan Odell, The Healing

Friday, March 8, 2013

9:00 a.m. - Introduction & Welcome

9:15 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. - Session I - Genetic Privacy: Secret Mothers, Fathers, & Lives

  Chair: Taunya Banks
  Panelists: Martha Ertman | Glenn Choen | Lori Andrews

Break

11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. - Session II - Public Versus Private: Courts & Law Enforcement

  Chair: Michael Pinard
  Panelists: Deborah Epstein | Michele Goodwin

12 noon - Lunch & Keynote Address from Jonathan Odell

1:10 p.m. - 2:40 p.m. - Session III - Minors, Networks, Sexuality and Privacy

  Chair: Karen Czapanskiy
  Panelists: Laura Rosenbury | Camille Gear Rich | Gaia Bernstein 

2:40 p.m. - 3:40 p.m. - Session IV - Reimagining Privacy

  Chair: Naomi Cahn
  Panelists: Eleanor Brown | Martha Field 

Break

3:50p.m. - 4:05 p.m. - Closing Commentary 

  Reflection: June Carbone
  Closing: Michele Goodwin 

Roundtable Faculty

Lori Andrews
Distinguished Professor of Law 
Director of the Institute for Science, Law and Technology
Chicago-Kent College of Law

Gaia Bernstein 
Professor of Law
Seton Hall University School of Law

Eleanor Brown
Associate Professor of Law
George Washington University Law School

June Carbone
Edward A. Smith/Missouri Chair in Law, the Constitution and Society 
Professor of Law
University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law
 

Glen Cohen
Assistant Professor of Law
Co-Director, Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics
Harvard Law School
 

Deborah Epstein
Director, Domestic Violence Clinic
Professor of Law
Georgetown Law
 

Martha Ertman
Carole & Hanan Sibel Research Professor of Law
University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law

Martha Field
Langdell Professor of Law
Harvard Law School

Michelle Goodwin
Everett Fraser Professor of Law
University of Minnesota Law School

Jonathan Odell
Author of The Healing

Camille Gear Rich
Associate Professor of Law
University of Southern California Gould School of Law
 

Laura Rosenbury
Professor of Law
Washington University School of Law

Faculty Chairs

 
Taunya Banks
Jacob A. France Professor of Equality Jurisprudence
University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law  
 

Naomi Cahn
Harold H. Greene Professor of Law
George Washington University Law School

Karen Czapanskiy
Francis & Harriet Iglehart Research Professor of Law
University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law 

Michael Pinard 
Professor of Law
Director of Clinical Law Program
University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law

Additional Details

Secret keeping is not only a social norm within many families and societies, but it is also a conflicting feature within the law. There are times in which the law protects secrets, such as between lawyer and client, doctor and patient, or clergy and congregant. Yet, there are times when the law demands that secret keepers reveal their confidences, e.g., the increasing demand on doctors to disclose confidential medical information about pregnant women to law enforcement. 

How should we understand the contours and boundaries of these dynamics within the law? On the one hand, the law tends to address secrets through the lens of legal duties to protect the vulnerable via regulations governing abuse and neglect. On the other hand, this set of law captures only a small percentage of secrets held by family members and other trusted secret keepers who, for a variety of reasons, elect not to inform the state. 

This roundtable interrogates states' obligations to protect the vulnerable and at what cost. It considers the ways in which the law promises/owes protection and the success, failure, or harm it brings about when endeavoring to intervene and offer protection. Against that backdrop, the law also has the obligation to honor individual and family autonomy and privacy. 

This conference will offer the opportunity to map a series of questions related to secret keeping and the law. For example, why are children reluctant to disclose physical and sexual abuse? Why are some parents disinclined to recognize evidence of sexual abuse? How should we think about physician disclosure of pregnant patients' medical information to law enforcement pursuant to feticide laws and child abuse statutes? Other topics include secrecy in assisted reproduction, domestic violence, the church's role in secret keeping, genetics, and medicine.

The keynote lecture will feature Jonathan Odell, author of the dynamic novel The Healing, which tells the forgotten story of race, medicine, and midwifery during the U.S. antebellum period.