Shift #10 - Watching Recorded Webinar (Human Rights Day)
Friday, May 31, 2024 | 1:30-3 pm PST/3:30-5 pm CST/4:30-6 pm EST (1.5 hrs)
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Michelle Hurt, student/intern
Jennifer Gonzalez, practicum supervisor
This is a screenshot from a webinar recording I had to watch as part of my Week 2 internship activities. We had to select a past webinar from the Legal Research Institute.
This week, in lieu of a live webinar by the Legal Research Institute, we had to select a past webinar to watch. There were many different topics like firearms laws in Brazil in Mexico, Italian data protection laws, science literacy and the law, and genealogy as part of criminal investigation in Denmark and Sweden. I selected the Human Rights Day 2021 to watch, because the description noted that was a discussion on the intersection of health and human rights as well as how humans can help health systems. I'm interested in public health access, especially in these times post-COVID, so I thought it would be enlightening to hear from health experts as they framed their discussion on human rights. I knew going in, especially with my beliefs, that everyone should have a right to medical care. What was surprising is that there are still countries today that don't provide a right to medical care for their citizens, even so far as to not having anything in their constitution. There were several different panelists bringing in their expertise as the discussion went on. I noted one particular panelist, Dr. Alicia Ely Yamin, who talked about HIV. She said that health and human rights are related and it is hard for people to enjoy the right to health if they cannot access it. She said that health is a product of having civil and political rights, something that not every country has.
Another panelist I noted was a Dr. Sandor who spoke about human rights in light of health technological advancements. He said that in this industry, there are accessibility issues and discriminatory aspects of technologies. Technology can be degrading. Where it should be enhancing life and human rights, sometimes it can provide challenges to those who it should be helping. Dr. Sandor also gave an example of genome editing. Where doctors and scientists want to give prospective parents a chance to have healthy babies and children, technology is not yet fully safe and can give babies unintended consequences. As he talked, I wondered about underserved communities - how do they benefit from technological advancements in health? Or, are they ignored or harmed by it? Another panelist, Dr. Mize, talked about lessons learned from the world's response to the pandemic. She focused on the implications of policies, with the biggest issue being individual rights versus the collective good.
Overall, it was a really interesting panel with so much to consider as the world moves on from the outbreak of COVID. It won't be the last pandemic that will hit, but I hope the world is better prepared for the next one.
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