PORTABLE PROFESSOR™ is a series of exciting and informative lectures recorded by some of today's most renowned university and college professors. Each course introduces listeners to fascinating, and sometimes startling, insights into the intellectual forces that shape our understanding of the world. Each package includes 14 riveting lectures presented by notable professors as well as a book-length course guide.

Reproduction is a process fundamental to every known species, so it is no surprise that human beings, perhaps the most self-reflective of all species, spend so much time thinking about the implications of creating life anew. In this intriguing series of lectures, Professor Alexander McCall Smith explores the startling, and occasionally unsettling, ethical choices that humans face now that medical technology has made it possible to guide the hand of creation with increasing levels of precision and purpose.

COURSE LECTURES

An Overview of the Techniques for Creating HumansWhen Does Life Begin? The Human EmbryoWhat Sort of Children Shall We Have? The Science of ReproductionCloning: I Want Them to Take After MeA Boy Please: Sex SelectionAbortion?Who's My Mother? Who's My Father? SurrogacyA Sorting Vat for Babies: Screening for AbnormalitiesSuperboy and Wondergirl: Genetic EnhancementSpare-Part ChildrenThe Right to ReproduceLife-Boat Ethics: Population ControlHard Choices: Ethics in Intensive CareScience as a Father
Alexander McCall Smith is a man of many and varied talents. He is Professor of Medical Law at Scotland's University of Edinburgh as well as Vice-Chairman of the Human Genetics Commission of the United Kingdom, and especially in the latter capacity is in worldwide demand as a speaker. He is also a prolific author, not just of highly regarded academic texts in his field, but of children's books and of the best-selling series about Precious Ramotswe, the proprietress of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.