Cape Cod Grandmothers Against Gun Violence
P.O. Box 877, Barnstable, MA 02630

Grandmothers Zoom Meeting – June 2, 2021 – 10:30 AM
Brendan Abel - Director of Government Affairs and
Legislative Counsel for the Massachusetts Medical Society

Brendan Abel
Brendan Abel 		Brendan Abel is the Director of Government Affairs and Legislative Counsel at the Massachusetts Medical Society, where he directs the legislative affairs for the organization representing over 25,000 physicians in the Commonwealth. He also serves on the teaching faculty at the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School, where he teaches a core course in the Bioethics Masters program, "Health Law, Policy, and Bioethics,” among other teaching responsibilities. Prior to the Medical Society, he worked at a large Boston academic teaching hospital, where he focused on legal and ethical issues in biomedical research, and was the health policy researcher at the New England Journal of Medicine.

Upon completing undergraduate studies at Syracuse University, he earned his JD from Suffolk University Law School. He completed a fellowship in Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School. Brendan has been published in a number of academic publications including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Hastings Center Report. Brendan regularly presents on topics at the intersection of law and medicine. He has served as a bioethics consultant to the federal government, and has served on the ethics committee of a local hospital. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Essential Partners, a non-profit organization which has worked for three decades to facilitate challenging conversations using its innovative approach to dialogue.

Brendan will be discussing legislative approaches to reducing gun violence. He will cover major developments in Massachusetts legislation over the past several years, as well as updates to the implementation of some key legislative initiatives. Brendan will discuss the framing of gun violence policy as a public health issue, and how that has shaped advocacy in this space over the past several years. Lastly, Brendan will discuss current legislative discussions during this 117th Congress in Washington.