UC Hastings Professor of Law Radhika Rao will speak on "Property, Privacy, and Other Legal Constructions of the Embryo." Her analysis will span from the status of the embryo/fetus in abortion law, especially the recent case of Gonzales v. Carhart, and to criminal laws that attempt to personify the embryo/fetus, and other contexts which appear to propertize embryos, such as IVF and stem cell research.

Professor Rao teaches in the areas of constitutional law, family law, and property, and the law of the human body. Professor Rao has written articles on abortion, assisted reproduction, cloning, stem cell research, genetics, gene patenting, and property rights in the human body. She was a member of the California Advisory Committee on Human Cloning, and currently serves on the California Human Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee. She is also a national reporter for the United States to the 17th International Congress of Comparative Law in Utrecht, Netherlands. She has been a visiting professor at Brooklyn Law School, the University of Michigan Law School, and the University of Trento in Italy.