The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School is pleased to announce our 2026 Annual Conference: “Embryo Law and Ethics.”

Since the 1980s it has been possible to create human embryos outside of the body and preserve them indefinitely through cryopreservation. With that technology has come major legal and ethical debates about the treatment of these embryos, and the physicians, parents, and donors involved in creating them. For many years, courts have struggled with legal questions relating to the disposition of these embryos and related legislative actions. The United States Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022, overturning Roe v. Wade, has resulted in increased interest in the law and policy pertaining to in vitro embryos, including issues concerning the legal personhood of human embryos, liability for their destruction, regulation of the industry, donor and offspring interests, and parental rights and responsibilities.

This conference calls on participants to consider the rapidly changing landscape of embryo law and ethics. At this moment of deep societal debates, we hope to explore collectively the challenges and opportunities of possible paths forward. The conference will seed a book that explores the legal, regulatory, moral, and ethical topics at hand.

This year’s conference is organized by the Petrie-Flom Center’s Faculty Director I. Glenn Cohen and Executive Director Susannah Baruch in collaboration with Judith Daar, the Ambassador Patricia L. Herbold Dean and Professor of Law at Northern Kentucky University Chase College of Law, and O. Carter Snead, the Charles E. Rice Professor of Law and Concurrent Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.

The conference panels will be livestreamed for the general public.

Agenda coming soon!

Sponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School with support from the ASRM Center for Policy and Leadership and the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund at Harvard University.