Bioethics and Moral Courage in Practice – with Dr. Vardit Ravitsky

In this episode of The Space In Between, host Leigh Morgan and Dr. Vardit Ravitsky (President and CEO of The Hastings Center for Bioethics) explore what moral courage in practice actually looks like when the choices are thorny, the facts are contested, and the consequences are deeply human. Leigh and Dr. Ravitsky explore how bioethics helps us navigate today’s most charged issues—vaccines and public health, abortion and women’s lives, AI and genomics—without sliding into either performative “dialogue” or hardened certainty. You’ll hear why Dr. Ravitsky insists that “good ethics starts with good facts,” how her team designs inclusive conversations without legitimizing misinformation or dehumanization, and why trust-building relationships are the real engine of progress. If you’re hungry for grounded wisdom on how to stay humane, clear-eyed, and connected in unsettled times—this conversation will both steady you and challenge you.

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Transcript

0:01

Hello and welcome to the. Space in between podcast. I'm your host Lee Morgan. Again, this podcast is for listeners who are fed up. Up with the hyperpolarized nature of the world today. And who crave. Craves spaces where current events can be discussed in construct. enlightening and delightful ways. Let's get.

Leigh Morgan 0:28

Hello Fran. Thank you for joining me on the Space In Between Podcast. I am really honored to introduce to you a remarkable and very thoughtful leader, Dr. Vardy Ky, the president and CEO of the Hastings Center for Bioethics. The Hastings Center's work focuses on the social and ethical challenges in medicine. Healthcare, science and technology and how to navigate both wisely and responsibly. Dr. Ky is one of the world's leading bioethicists. I'm kind of amazed. We're sitting here in this virtual environment together. I mean, she's really a world leader in thinking about this whole field, her career has focused on the ethical, legal, and social implications of emerging technologies like ai, of course are having a profound impact on society. Her work very much sits at the heart of some of the hardest questions of our time offers important lessons for all of us about how we can navigate deep disagreement, complexity, and nuance without losing our humanity and building pathways that literally do bridge divides. Not a surprise that I wanted to have her on the space in between because boy, we love diving into this sort of thing. Today we're gonna do that and capture insights about navigating thorny ethical issues, how to think about boundaries and responsibility when we're in dialogue with each other, and explore practices that can help all of us stay connected to ourselves and each other during unsettled times. Ky. Welcome to the Space in Between Podcast.

Vardit Ravitsky 2:23

Thank you so much for having me. I am the one who is honored'cause I'm a big fan of this podcast and I always wanted to be on it.

Leigh Morgan 2:29

Well, here we are. May I call you Verite?

Vardit Ravitsky 2:32

Please do.

Leigh Morgan 2:33

Oh, okay, great, thanks. Well, we met this past November at an event where you spoke about the Hastings Center and your energy and passion for your work and the mission of the center just lit up the room. So my first question to you is, where does your passion for this work come from?

Vardit Ravitsky 2:53

Lee, I was born and raised in Jerusalem, an Jewish Orthodox family. And the environment, um, of my upbringing was quite homogeneous. people shared values, uh, rules, behaviors, even political views to some degree. And I think from an early age I was just. Instinctively drawn to diversity. I was always curious about how other people lived, what it was like to grow up in another culture, because my own culture was, as I said, pretty homogeneous. and so as soon as I was old enough to do that, I moved to Paris and was just absolutely enchanted by the new language in the new culture. try to immerse myself in it, you know, everything sounds sexier in French, right? then I moved to the us and worked there. So I moved quite a lot, uh, around the world and I saw different ways of life. Um, and I think one thing that drew me to the field of bioethics is that it is inherently diverse. it's multidisciplinary. It involves different, uh, backgrounds and ways of, of. Studying the field, it's interdisciplinary. To do a project well, you have to speak across the disciplinary divide. And I see the field of bioethics as a place where you have to translate across cultures. If you're a philosopher speaking to scientists, if you're a clinician speaking to anthropologists, we don't really speak the same language. And it's all about translation, which is something that I think I'm just intuitively drawn to. that means that I bring a lot of passion for cultural perspectives, uh, in bioethics. I think sometimes if you work in one culture, you have a lot of blind spots when it comes to all these assumptions that you make. and when you move around the world and speak different cultural languages, you become acutely aware of how. Everything is framed by our cultural values and assumptions, and that's not just the answers that we give to about questions. That's how we frame the question itself. So I think that's a unique aspect that I really bring to everything that I do.

Leigh Morgan 5:04

Oh, that's so interesting. And one of the things I've noticed, well, I noticed about you, you know, we've had some conversations and I, you just stood out. Your passion, your conviction. You also, you're, you're not a wilting flower, right? So you have very strong convictions and values, which in my book makes the work. You're, you do really powerful because you're able to. Embody as a leader, clear convictions, but you just spoke about how you really actually are interested in diverse perspectives and the cultural context. Is there anything about growing up in an Orthodox Jewish family in Israel that helped you stay rooted in some core values, even now swimming in such diversity?

Vardit Ravitsky 5:56

Yeah, I think that there's an inherent tension between loyalty to tradition, heritage, where you come from, and the need to think about the future in innovative and open-ended ways. And I think for within academia in research, that tension, if you're a good researcher, that is the tension that you operate in. And that's the tension I grew up in because I grew up, um, in a sort of denomination that is called modern Orthodox.

Leigh Morgan 6:26

Mm-hmm.

Vardit Ravitsky 6:26

follow Jewish law to the letter with great loyalty and won't just on their own change it. But want to be embedded in the modern world and allow, uh, what's happening around them, uh, sort of, uh, become a part of the way they live, not a community that closes itself up to the world. And I think that that tension is exactly what I bring to my work in bioethics. And, you know, Lee, I didn't even think about it until you asked me that we have to stay grounded in the philosophic big philosophical traditions of ethical theory. You know, con utilitarianism, uh, virtue ethics, Aristotle, we borrow from all of those ways of thinking to approach bioethical dilemmas. But what science and technology throws at us is unprecedented.

Leigh Morgan 7:13

Hmm.

Vardit Ravitsky 7:14

like new, new, uh, technologies sometimes revolutionize the most fundamental concepts. I'll give you an example. I've worked for decades in reproductive ethics. IVF is just over 40 years old. That was the first time that we had a human embryo, human egg outside of the body. And then we realized we could create an embryo and put it back in the body of another woman. And after, you know, the entire history of our species, a mom was the mom, she was the genetic mother. She was the one who gave birth. So all of our cultural assumptions and all our, of all of our laws treat a mother as a mother. And all of a sudden that became two different. Aspects. You had the genetic mother, you had the gestational mother, and we were unprepared. So courts had to ask, wait, who is the mother? And ethics had to ask what matters? More genetic relatedness or carrying, um, a fetus and giving birth. And that fundamentally changed what it means to be a parent, what it means to build a family. So technology throws these curve balls at us, and we're trying to rely on notions that are centuries old, but we have to be responsive. So it's in that tension that I grew up, and it's in that tension that I find my work today.

Leigh Morgan 8:42

Can we take a minute and just set the table for anyone listening about bioethics, is it as a field? Kind of give us the, you know, cliff notes for that. And then I would ask you, how is the field changing in the last few years? Because we've had, the pace and change of technology in the world is just going faster, right? So you, you've kind of introduced that concept of, holy cow, things change. We need to think about how we're changing. my hunch is bioethics is at the cutting edge of all of that.

Vardit Ravitsky 9:19

It is so a moment of history. We've always had medical ethics, right? We have the Hippocratic Oath. From 2000 years ago, um, medicine because it deals with humans, uh, life and death. healing always acknowledged the ethical implications of, of the job, of the role of being a healer. but for Century, what we had was a set of principles that guide doctors and a lot of what we call today medical paternalism. Doctors

Leigh Morgan 9:49

Mm.

Vardit Ravitsky 9:50

knows what's good for you. They make the decision. They inform you only about what they think you should know. you follow instructions, um, bioethics breaks with that tradition. It was actually born after the second World War in reaction to, scandals and research ethics, the atrocities of the Nazi experimentation, and then the Tuskegee study that abused research participants and other many studies that used vulnerable populations in unethical ways. And in response to these new technologies, heart transplantation, dialysis, things that kept people alive, and then the reproductive technologies that changed how we create families. the, the discovery of DNA genetic testing, all of those things were emerging at the same time that society was changing and society was changing in the direction of human rights and emancipation of minorities and, autonomy. The concept of personal, individual autonomy was rising as underlying all of these societal changes. And so the place where bioethics breaks with medical ethics is the empowerment of the individual to get all the information relevant to their care, to give informed consent. To being touched or being treated. the right to refuse medical treatment, the control over how we die, how we live, how we're treated. and that is really the core of bioethics. In the early decades, autonomy was so glorified and it was so much the core principle of this new, uh, area of study and practice that it isolated us a little bit. We became those just atomic entities that make, we make decisions about our health and about our life and death, as if for not embedded in families, communities, histories, cultures. And so we corrected course after a few decades and started recognizing that autonomy is very important. But real autonomy is what we call relational. We are relational.

Leigh Morgan 11:55

Relational autonomy, or is it a separate concept?

Vardit Ravitsky 11:59

No, it is, it is a, a sort of the, the modern, the more modern take on autonomy is relational. It's the recognition that communities are as important as our own individual decision making, and that basically we make our decisions within communities. and so that is sort of the theoretical shift or pivot that the field is seeing. We also moved from thinking mostly about bedside ethics to thinking about public health ethics and systemic issues. you know, you can make all the decisions that you want if the resources are not there because society doesn't give them. Your decision making is useless because you just don't have access. So we started recognizing systemic issues, population health, public health. So the field evolved quite a lot in terms of technologies. You know, every morning I wake up to a new piece of news about something that became possible that was just science fiction until a few years ago. And my work agenda shifts because that needs to be addressed now. We can now make egg and cell from from stem cells. What does that mean? That human beings are gonna be different. We converse with AI and feel that they're empathic and understanding us. What does that mean for care and and compassion? So technology throws new challenges at us all the time, and the field has to pivot real quick.

Leigh Morgan 13:16

So the Hastings Center is at the forefront of that. There's many others in the world, but I know that the Hastings Center, and one of the things I love about the Hastings Center, and I'm, I'm still learning, but I would describe it as stridently, nonpartisan, and I, I emphasize stridently, nonpartisan. It may seem like a contradiction, but my understanding is that. You and your team recognize that in order to deal with the craziness of the world of these new technologies and the implication, the relational implications, you need to be able to attract and curate, uh, research groups, uh, have programs where you actually do have a diversity of opinions in the same room. Metaphorically, does being while also being clear that you do care about things like the collective justice equity, removing barriers for human flourishing and, you know, and reinstating trust in medicine? You know, you kind of take a stand on the ladder, but you're also very nonpartisan.

Vardit Ravitsky 14:28

So Ali, I wanna speak about two separate things. One is how to allow such diversity of opinions to enter a conversation. While not validating and giving voice and disseminating misinformation, and this is a huge challenge. Currently, we're living in an environment where there's a con know the post-truth world, constant assault on concepts like evidence, expertise, scientific fact. so when you convene a diverse group with multiple perspectives, it's important to be open and inclusive, but at the same time, you have to be very careful not to literally spread, what is anti-science and not based on evidence, because misinformation kills people. And that is exactly the opposite of what we're trying to do. And so I'll give you two examples. One has to do, of course, with the, uh, vaccination debate. On one hand, you want to listen to people, you wanna understand where they're coming from. Why are they afraid of vaccines? What misinformation have they processed? what are their concerns? Are they religious, cultural? Are they just mis ill-informed? So you wanna meet people where they are and you wanna include those concerns in the way that you address the challenge because you know, what's happening today with vaccination is gonna kill children

Leigh Morgan 15:57

Yeah,

Vardit Ravitsky 15:58

harm, uh, us on a population level. And I'm not even talking about COVID. even now, the, the childhood vaccination schedule was just changed in a way that threatens public health significantly. So how do you invite people to the table and you wanna listen to them and meet them where they are while not taking part in this, threat to public health? And that is an ongoing challenge. it's, it's a very thin line. you know, I was sometimes invited, I did a lot of media during COVID and yes, I was representing gov the government's position regarding public health measures that were ethically justified and necessary. But some people saw them as an assault on their freedom, uh, and were pushing very strongly against them. And I was attacked, uh, and criticized, even at a personal level. Uh, anti-vaxxers went after me in pretty violent ways. and you wanna walk that thin line of. Staying true to the facts as we know them. And remember, the facts evolve as well. Science is not one thing, science is a journey. you wanna be transparent, you wanna be informative, but you don't want to be arrogant or insult people. You do wanna speak to them where they are, and that takes so much sensitivity and wisdom and responsibility. Um, so that's just at the level of addressing misinformation. Or lemme give you another example that is very volatile, the abortion debate.

Leigh Morgan 17:25

Yeah.

Vardit Ravitsky 17:25

You want to listen to people's views and you wanna respect their beliefs regarding the moral status of the fetus and when life begins and, recognize the, the validity of their moral stance. But you can take your eye off the ball and not acknowledge that restrictions on abortion care kill women. Especially women of color. These are the facts. and so you as a field, you wanna respect human rights and promote human wellbeing while listening to various positions. But again, stay grounded in facts. If we adopt this policy, these people will die. and that's, that's one of the big challenges of bioethics.

Leigh Morgan 18:11

Well, I'm glad we have people like you in the sector because you, you mentioned it's a very delicate process and I'd love to follow on that theme because we're, we live in such a polarized time where, you know, every day, again, the barrage of negative, blaming, and shaming, you were blamed in shame during COVID. You just gave some examples, right, of I'm sure that wasn't fun and may have felt actually dangerous at times and. So your work in the world and your colleagues is about the mechanics having the discussions. Right. and I wonder what your thoughts are about, how do you, in the moment when you are convening groups, how do you distinguish between listening and respecting where someone comes from and also validating a, a moral perspective or ethical perspective not tilting into a relativism that denies that there are certain facts that everyone should just say this is, is a body of knowledge. That's true.

Vardit Ravitsky 19:25

We always say at the Hasting Center, good ethics. Start with good facts. So the first stage I would say is to screen out the misinformation. Again, based on the notion that we have to be humble in science and acknowledge what we don't know in an emergency such as COVID, we didn't understand the virus at first. We issued recommendations, uh, often out of caution without knowing all the facts. And then we learned more and we modified these recommendations. And the public sometimes saw the changing, approach and said, oh, they don't know what they're talking about. No. That is how science works. That is how public health works. We collect the data, we adapt. good science communication requires staying close to that evolution of the facts. That's a, a side comment, but you have to start by gathering the information and we call this a well-informed conversation. And if somebody, tries to infuse the conversation with misinformation, there are clearly false. Then as much as you wanna be inclusive. You have to screen out those voices, then you move to the ethical or the moral dimension of it, and you say, we wanna be open, inclusive, have diverse perspectives, but we will exclude voices that do not respect human rights, that are racist, for example, that are misogynistic. so that is a second layer of be inclusive and listening while keeping some ground rules, uh, and ethical sense. And then there's a third layer where it becomes really intricate, where you ask yourself, what is the goal of this conversation?

Leigh Morgan 21:12

Ooh.

Vardit Ravitsky 21:12

We want to explore in depth with nuance a question that is very complex and we wanna come up with guidelines or a new understanding that helps society, helps patients, helps family. So how can we design this conversation in a way that it doesn't die before it even takes off? And in a way that we can make progress, we can make moral progress. And sometimes that requires, again, excluding some voices. And you know, I use the word exclude a lot because it's very complicated. So you need to screen for misinformation. You need to screen for those who do not share, basic values such as respect for human rights and equity. And then you sort of curate the room to include the voices that can make progress. Give you an example because an example is always, uh,

Leigh Morgan 22:08

Yeah.

Vardit Ravitsky 22:09

here to follow than what I'm saying in the abstract. We had many years ago, a project about prenatal testing. What does it mean to test your fetus for genetic conditions and in many cases decide to terminate a pregnancy? Does that send a message to people who live with us with that same condition, that their lives are less valued than abled bodied people's lives. what is the message sent to families raising these children? how should society design policies to support people with disabilities while telling people to screen out those disabilities during pregnancy? Right.

Leigh Morgan 22:48

Very complicated stuff.

Vardit Ravitsky 22:50

complicated. So how do you create a conversation around that that respects different positions, but can go somewhere? And the Hastings Center made a very intentional decision that. We can share a space between disability rights advocates who may be oppose any kind of prenatal testing because they see prenatal testing as sending a hurtful message to disabled communities. They will be around the table, and those who are pro-choice and think that women's autonomy is, uh, almost the o the only consideration and anyone should be able to test for whatever they want and terminate the pregnancy based on any reason that suits them. These are already pretty far apart when you're trying to have such a conversation,

Leigh Morgan 23:38

really far apart.

Vardit Ravitsky 23:40

but, and that's where it gets really tricky. The conversation excluded pro-life positions because it

Leigh Morgan 23:49

they, they folks who might identify as pro-life couldn't even get to the starting line to frame up something that wasn't exclusively, you can't do anything.

Vardit Ravitsky 24:00

Precisely. So if you try to have those three voices around the table and one of the three voices cannot progress even an inch, how can you have a fruitful, useful conversation about what justifies terminating pregnancy and what does it, and how does autonomy interact with the rights of communities? If there are people around the table who just block the conversation before it started, as you said. So that's a decision to exclude a voice in order to make ethical progress, and that's never simple. Give you quick other example. We recently had a project about social and behavioral genomics. That's a field of research that asks what is the genetic basis of things like intelligence, personality traits, uh, success in, uh, the educational system, having, uh, talents, athletic talents, musical talents, volatile field, because it plays with eugenics and with the notion of genetically selecting who gets to be born

Leigh Morgan 25:03

Just so, so I can, I can track and I actually read the report on this. It's on your website. It's amazing. one of the issues, there's companies popping up and people who might wanna say, I wanna use some genomic testing see if the fetus will have a high eq, likelihood for high eq, which means they're gonna be smarter or more successful, or, that sort, I mean, that's just the tip of the spear, right? Around

Vardit Ravitsky 25:32

right.

Leigh Morgan 25:32

designer babies would be, the far spectrum of, of that. And then you enter, you'd mentioned cultural context at the top of our conversation. What if, you know, someone feels like white men are being attacked and we need a whole effort to just breed more white men. That gets into, uh, well, if you've read mind conf, you might have a, a sense of what, what, where that leads you.

Vardit Ravitsky 26:03

Exactly. So you have science that is still kind of nascent and emerging, and even the evidence is unclear. And then you have the social possible uses of that science. And by the way, Lee, it's not just for which uh, baby to have, it could even be universities deciding who has better potential to succeed based on genetic testing. Imagine that. Of

Leigh Morgan 26:24

Okay.

Vardit Ravitsky 26:26

with your essay,

Leigh Morgan 26:27

Wow.

Vardit Ravitsky 26:29

right? So we think it's crazy, but some people think that it's actually a pretty good, uh, indicator and especially the research on these issues should continue and other people think we should stop this research right now because it's socially too dangerous. So we convened around one table, those who think this is a very promising field of study and we need to invest in it while using it kind of responsibly. And those who think this is eugenics, this is, uh, dangerous, but we did exclude a voice. We excluded those who believe, that kind of support their white supremacist assumptions on genetics. We excluded the racist voices, um, or those who are explicitly eugenic regarding how they wanna use the technology. And here again, you need to have some shared moral ground. Um, if you're gonna go somewhere, somewhere with this conversation and issue recommendations for researchers, for families, for educators, if you wanna get to something useful that will protect society, it's okay to exclude the most extreme voices that would stop the conversation, as you said before it started. And that is sort of the design, the intentional ethical design of complicated, challenging conversations that respect diversity that is at the heart of what the Hasting Center is trying to do. I.

Leigh Morgan 28:03

Can you give us an example of an output or outcome of this discussion or another project that you all had that had a positive impact in public policy? Just so we can really ground that. People are talking about this, but an output of this conversation was a framework that went to policymakers and they adopted some, guardrails against certain type of research. Did, did I get that right? That's the sort of thing that this isn't

Vardit Ravitsky 28:35

That's one possibility, but I'll give you an example that comes from a totally different direction to keep the, our conversation diverse. decades ago, the issue of end of life was a very hard topic in ethics and in law. people were not allowed, allowed to stop, uh, a ventilator or stop, uh, artificial, uh, nutrition and hydration. People wanted more control over the end of their lives. And societal values were changing. The Hasting Center was the first, bioethical, uh, center in the United States that to come up with guidelines for end of life treatment. And it was a consensus based document that was spread across the healthcare system and adopted by hospitals, uh, all over the country. And it was the go-to document with guidelines about how to respect patient autonomy, how to have conversations with patients in preparing. towards that stage, how to converse with families, how clinicians, uh, need to approach this. And it was so influential that when the Supreme Court of the United States considered, these, precedents, it quoted the guidelines of the Hastings Center. Since then, we revised those guidelines a second time based on a consensus, um, project, uh, consensus building project in order to bring them up to date. And now we're doing it for the third time. I took us in a different direction than emerging technologies. We all deal with end of life issues.

Leigh Morgan 30:04

Yes.

Vardit Ravitsky 30:04

on that, on HIV, during COVID, the Hasting Center was the first place to issue guidelines that were widely adopted.

Leigh Morgan 30:12

I am so glad you shared that example because you know, my mom passed in 2019 and we had an end of life, end of care directive and those are the sort of things that many of us are familiar with, of affirming what does one want at the end of their life and what's the role of family. So thank you and the center for doing that. I know that's actually a

Vardit Ravitsky 30:34

Uh, that happened way before my time Lee,

Leigh Morgan 30:37

Well claim it. Exactly. Well,

Vardit Ravitsky 30:38

but I, I'm proud.

Leigh Morgan 30:39

your forebears. Well, lemme, lemme ask you a, a tough question. Not like my questions haven't been tough, but your work is so nuanced and complicated. So I think you'll have a really interesting perspective, and that is, even if we weed out folks on extremes, right? They don't get in the room because there's, there's some perspective or experience that just is a non-starter for listening and being open to at least validating other perspectives, right? Because you, we need that in the room to literally problem solve and make progress together. At the same time, I would guess that you've seen a lot of fear come up, for people or emotions that come up because, you know, when, we don't want, when we hold firm, I know this is true for me. When I get really attached to an idea, it's usually because I feel threatened. Something about my life, my livelihood or someone I love or someone in my community feels threatened. it's a human reaction to care to, you know, try to help each other. And often there's that fight or flight that comes up. And so even if we take away the extremes, I would guess you have some experience of seeing people in these rooms have big emotional reactions. And when that happens, what have you seen that helps trust, that helps the group working on these thorny issues move forward.

Vardit Ravitsky 32:15

Well, you stole my, the thunder of my answer because it's really all about trust. and I think what makes the Hastings Method special is that we take the time. The genomics project took three years, and in the first year there was a lot of suspicion across the table and just learning each other's language, understanding why you think the science is promising and why are you so scared of the science that takes many conversations. We were, we, we live in a world of soundbites and very small, uh, you know, short exchanges and echo chambers. So to take the time to learn about each other's perspectives gradually and to build a trust is pretty exceptional these days, unfortunately. And the other thing is the importance of relationships. Um, I work in big, uh, diverse teams. For example, we have a big project about how to use AI and biomedical research. We work across 10 universities spread across North America. Each one of us is in a different type of dis discipline. If we don't meet in person and go out for a beer, it's so difficult to even understand where the others are coming from. What is, what's their concerns, what drives them? And so the NIH keeps asking us, what is the secret to the success of such a complex project? And the answer is relationships. Because without that, you don't have understanding and you don't have trust. Um, and you have to feed those human relationships. The more the conversation's difficult, the more it's important. So you gotta take the time. You gotta really stay open-minded, listen to nuance, not look for simple answers, and slowly build the human connection in order to have the trust and be able to get outta your comfort zone when you hear something that makes you very uncomfortable.

Leigh Morgan 34:15

You know, you've just touched on themes that have been repeated over and over and over again on this podcast, which is about the importance of building relationships and taking the time to make the. Happen. You are dealing with multiple years scenarios in part because framing up these very, very, very complex ethical issues or dilemmas, as I might say, it so complicated that you really need to take that time and the consequences are huge for what happens or doesn't happen in the room. You, you want to make progress and yet even in these micro moments, right, of working just in our own teams at, in our workplace or maybe in our families, where there's a heated debate about who did you vote for? Still this principle matters of building relationships and making that a priority.

Vardit Ravitsky 35:14

Absolutely. And one of the things that I love the most about academia and uh, and research is that as you progress in your career path, you get to choose who to work with. And, uh, you can very intentionally pick collaborators where the relationship will be longstanding. So you don't just work on one project. There are people I've collaborated with for 30 years, Lee,

Leigh Morgan 35:40

Wow.

Vardit Ravitsky 35:41

to project. We don't think the same. Sometimes we were trained very differently, but we now trust each other's judgment and ethics and expertise and way of working in a way that allows us to take shortcuts and really make progress. and so these relationships, you know, I think a lot of people ask themselves what makes science successful? Sometimes it's, it's those longstanding relationships that allow you to really run fast when you're seeking an answer to a question

Leigh Morgan 36:15

I know when I've been in some large leadership roles, I, I learned really very quickly, mostly because I fell on my face as a leader sometimes trying to push really fast. You actually skip over. Does everyone have the same sense of where we're going? And you talked about that third element of the work you do, right? Of having a shared goal of working towards something together. And so sometimes going slow actually means you can go fast

Vardit Ravitsky 36:47

exactly.

Leigh Morgan 36:48

or have more balance, literally, when you are on that, are on that precipice dealing with some of these really gnarly issues. And it makes me wonder, you know, not all of us are in academia, you know, or have this, training that you do. And so what advice would you give to folks who don't have the training that you do? Might not have a few years, but any practical advice during the week when something comes up where you're, you're just like, wow, this is really getting under my skin and yet I, I need to find a way forward with someone. Or in a setting where there's some really, really diverse perspectives.

Vardit Ravitsky 37:28

Such a great question. And I think during COVID, uh, when I was becoming really at one point, you know, people were dying and I was becoming very impatient and irritated by those who refused to be vaccinated. And there was this sense of urgency. And so you said, look, what do I do during the week when, you know, some of us lost friends over these disagreements, right?

Leigh Morgan 37:53

Yeah.

Vardit Ravitsky 37:54

I had to ground myself in the question and be really authentic about it. Where is this person coming from?

Leigh Morgan 38:04

Hmm.

Vardit Ravitsky 38:05

Why are they resistant? Why are they concerned? Why don't they trust? What in their personal narrative brings them here to this decision? What about the history of their community? gives them a totally different view of the world? Than my privileged one. and if you ask that authentically, you start listening to people differently, because you don't just meet them where they are, are now where it might seem to you that they're just wrong or just stubborn. you listen to their stories and that takes down some fences and starts a relationship and all of a sudden you discover other things. so that, that's to me a very human place to be in an ethical tension. And look, I, I work in this space, so I meet people with wildly diverse views that are super convinced that I'm wrong. And I tell them, well, your view leads to women dying. And it's very easy to throw that at each other, but you really need that patience that, that listening.

Leigh Morgan 39:18

Hmm.

Vardit Ravitsky 39:18

To understand how to have a useful conversation across the divide.

Leigh Morgan 39:24

that's really, really good advice. I, in a way, it's timeless. and I mentioned that because, you know, the first podcast I did in 2024, was with a remarkable storyteller named Ma May Fox. She has written a number of bestselling books and she teaches people how to write books, which is basically telling your story, right? These are nonfiction books. she shared some research that when we tell stories when we listen to other people's stories, we actually strengthen and expand the neural networks in our brain. And I don't know about you, but I want as many neural networks in my brain as possible. I'm getting older and, you know, heroic efforts to, to try to stay focused and sharp. it was both telling your story and listening has these, has a capacity to help our brains be, uh, have more plasticity. And when that happens, I don't know, I, I just want as many chips on the table as possible to be able to build connection, to build, to bridge divides. want every shot on goal and, and storytelling listening to other people's stories is at the epicenter think of being able to do that.

Vardit Ravitsky 40:49

Thank you for bringing that in. So true.

Leigh Morgan 40:52

Well, I'll, I'll give an assist to, to Memay Fox because she's had a, a very profound, um, impact on how I think about storytelling, you know, and the other, the other lesson that is coming to me, uh, hearing your, your story and your experience is it's important to seek other seekers. Now, other seekers may not share our views, but they need to be open enough to telling their stories, their authentic stories, and to listening to ours, right? And a. So I think that's another component of it. And so that means folks on the extremes, just, no, I'm not letting you in. So for me, with the podcast, the space in between is a, ideally a generative space. It's not a place of where the middle gets watered down, but where we can be uncomfortable and listen. But I'm not inviting on the show folks who have huge extremes because it, it doesn't lead to any actual generative conversation. And I think you're reaffirming that, that the Hastings Center, your experience over time in your team right now, over and over again, you are making those choices to put fellow seekers in a room, even if they're very diverse from one another.

Vardit Ravitsky 42:08

I love that framing, fellow secrets. I'm gonna steal that.

Leigh Morgan 42:11

I'll give it to you. Let's share it all around. And so you mentioned that listening. a grounding practice during COVID. What else do you do now to stay grounded? Because there's a lot of noise out there today and just, it's a really tough time for those of us who do care about human rights, who do care about public policy and responsiveness to all communities, not just a few. What, anything else that you do, uh, these days?

Vardit Ravitsky 42:40

So, yes, as I said, I, I need to stay grounded by the facts and the evidence. Which in this environment, where these things are under assault is not even obvious anymore. Uh, but also grounded. Grounded in values. Uh, and I'm talking about basic intuitive things like kindness and compassion, solid integrity, equity, respect for human rights, listening. We talk so much about listening, being a good human being, underlies being a good bioethicist or a good professional. So sometimes the noise is so loud around us. You wake up every morning to the barrage of news of everything that's wrong and everything you wanna fix and address, and just react, react, react. I think it's so important to take a deep breath and go basics. And to me that is, remember. Who I set out to be early in this journey. Why was I even drawn to bioethics and why was I drawn later in life to a leadership position? Because you wanted to help society help patients, help, people around me. Sometimes it's even help junior scholars that, you know, need mentorship and advice, but stay grounded in that notion of, you know, in, in Yiddish we, we say be a mensch. Just be a good human being. that, that's really helpful. And the other thing is you mentioned that we are non-partisan and, it was always a challenge because you deal with ethical issues that are highly politicized, such as abortion. But at this point in time, when talking about things like equity of access to care, respect for diversity, or just human dignity, those have become politicized and polarized.

Leigh Morgan 44:29

Yeah.

Vardit Ravitsky 44:30

Calling ourselves. Well, not just calling ourselves, but showing that we do non-partisan work has become a daily challenge. Um, so I'll give you an example. Uh.

Leigh Morgan 44:40

Oh, actually, I'm not surprised. I was gonna say really, but in a way I'm not surprised because you just, even using these words become lightning rods,

Vardit Ravitsky 44:50

Exactly. in early 2025, many of our collaborators, we, most of our projects are that are externally funded are we have collaborations with other universities. And those universities were under threat for their grants being pulled unless they scrubbed certain words from their websites,

Leigh Morgan 45:08

right?

Vardit Ravitsky 45:09

they closed certain departments and they were forced to do that. And so we had to, you know, for those collaborations, we, uh, we had to go with them on that and that that was excruciating to, to see it happen. so the example I wanted to give you is that in my first year on the job. Which is overall 2024, I developed a strategic plan for the Hastings Center. What will be our priorities and research? What will be the values that we will really lean into? And that was all ready and approved by our board at the end of 24. And then 25 happened. And the challenge was, do we go back and revisit some of those, now all of a sudden problematic, uh, values and concepts that were anchoring our strategic plan, or do we stick to it and stay the course? And with the support of our wonderful board, we stayed the course and other people looked at the text that just a few months ago was the most obvious text in the world. Again, talking about equity and, and inclusion and integrity. and said to me, oh, what moral bravery, the Hastings Center is showing such courage. And I thought, if this is called courage, the world is in really bad shape because we just continued to do the work we always did. We just continued to be who we always were, and the world shifted and that became an expression of moral courage. so sometimes that's the grounding. It's just knowing who you are and staying the course

Leigh Morgan 46:49

Yeah,

Vardit Ravitsky 46:50

and the environment around you makes it very, very difficult.

Leigh Morgan 46:54

it's such a story of staying grounded in who you are. Because, you know, things are gonna, things are gonna keep changing. You know, at some point we're not gonna have in power in the US who are, you know, going after this stuff. Now there's, it's still gonna happen. And, you know, it reminds me of an institution I am very fond of and I do some work at, which is Arizona State University and President Michael Crow, who I'm the senior advisor for him. And he has been steady and clear for 23 years now, that if you wanna build a world class public ed institution, then you should not chase a metric of success based on how many people you exclude. Crazy, right? Which means educating as many as you can in a high quality way and focusing on their success and the success of the communities that your university is a part of. If you do that, then you would necessarily have a very, very diverse student body. And they have more veterans enrolled there, they have more first generation students at a SU than anywhere else. And they, they really, uh, pioneered online learning because they said, well, if we wanna do education, we need to learn how to do it well online. Because that opens up further opportunities for people who can't just go to a four year college but who want a degree. And I think the Hasting center at a SU very similar values.'cause you can call it different things, but you're just doing what you do best for benefit of society.

Vardit Ravitsky 48:35

Absolutely. And that example of the a SU President, is so important, especially now because I think people, I. Look around them and they don't see ethical leadership at the highest levels. Um, I think we all need role models. We need to be inspired by our leaders. We need to hear, uh, words that lift us and we want, uh, to see leadership that is compassionate and respectful. And in the absence of all that, um, the, I, I won't call it burden. The opportunity, uh, for professionals to become ethical leaders is enormous. The responsibility and the opportunity. So, you know, teachers for their students, doctors for their teams and their patients, uh, even business leaders for their employees, uh, social activists for their communities, of course. Show what it means to live these values, to just implement them and how you run a university, how you run a company, how you run a hospital, because we're hungry for leadership that we can be inspired by. And it creates this opportunity for, you know, people like you and I that have a, a platform, a microphone, a responsibility to really step into a vacuum that is generated when the political environment really lacks, um, ethical leadership.

Leigh Morgan 50:11

I would agree. So we will keep moving forward together, imperfectly, and yet hopefully with a, a sense of, uh, mission and focus. And I have, I have one last question for you, which is, you had a magic wand and you could. Have any wish that you wanted for my friend who is listening right now, given what we've talked about of, um, understanding what this notion of navigating through complexity and nuance and staying grounded and finding a way forward, what, what is one wish you would offer as we finish up our podcast?

Vardit Ravitsky 50:49

In a way I just answered it. The, I, I am hungry for dreaming of ethical, truthful, trustworthy, and respectful political leadership, and I think I channel. So many appealing leaders who are inspiring, who are role models for ethical behavior and thinking, and also just a political environment or social environment where we are valued equally and where we feel respected as citizens. so I'm thinking about a society, you know, that's sort of my fantasy with your magic wand.

Leigh Morgan 51:28

We will

Vardit Ravitsky 51:28

society that thinks every day about the needs of those who are most vulnerable. Uh, those who live in poverty, first of all, those who have no access to resources, no access to healthcare in the richest country in the world. That blows my mind every day that we allow this to happen. Those who face language barriers, those who are mocked for being different or disabled. those who can't raise their children in safe. 50 and Uh, those were afraid to leave their home because they're concerned about being hunted.

Leigh Morgan 52:03

Yeah.

Vardit Ravitsky 52:04

so we were surrounded by all of those immoral, uh, realities. And I wish I had a magic wand that would just make us pay attention to those who need that attention the most and use our power and our privilege to fix this. a society that is invested not just in human rights, but in really lifting people up.

Leigh Morgan 52:27

That's a beautiful way to close our time together. And the, the good news is, first of all, you're, you are one of those leaders, so thank you for being a role model for me and so many others. I, it's been so inspiring to speak with you and, look forward to getting to know you better as you continue to lead and blaze trails and, and create, circles for people to come together. That's really important. And my hunch, uh, ee, is that there's way more love and kindness in the world. Just by a factor of a hundred. I mean, just so much. There's a unlimited abundance of love and kindness, and we are in a very tricky time right now where the visibility of that love and kindness gets drowned out, by social media and by politicians with megaphones. And right now we have a big, dominant, skilled one who's the president, but it happens also in all different sectors right on the left as well. I'm optimistic cautiously so that the connections we're having today that listeners for this podcast, folks who follow you and support the Hastings Center, slowly we're, we're regaining the, the moral and ethical ground we do care for each other, and do so out of a place of generosity rootedness to the common good. So I wanna thank you for inspiring me and the work that you do. Thank you for joining me on the space in between.

Vardit Ravitsky 53:59

And I wanna end by thanking you for joining the Advisory Council of the Hastings Center and helping us over the coming years chart the course to towards good places.

Leigh Morgan 54:09

I am honored. I'm honored for that. Uh, folks, I'm going to put a link to the Hastings Center in the show notes. Uh, if you feel inclined, go check them out and, uh, support their work. There's lots of ways to do it and they have some great materials that come out. So thank you so much

Vardit Ravitsky 54:26

Thank you.

Leigh Morgan 54:27

forward to maybe having you on, on the show again sometime in the future.

Vardit Ravitsky 54:31

Thank you, Lee.

Leigh Morgan 54:32

right. Bye for now.

54:36

I hope you. Enjoyed this episode of the space in between podcast. If. If you did, please hit the like button and leave a review. Wherever you listen to the show. And check out the space. Space in between.com website, where you can also leave me a message.