Redefining the Issues in Fetal Experimentation

Abstract

THERE has been a crisis of public confidence (<i>Marriage and Family Newsletter</i>, January 1972, pp 1-8) in the medical profession generated in this country by the performance of vivisection-type experiments on live aborted fetuses¹and highly questionable therapeutic trials involving institutionalized mentally defective children.^2,3Very few investigators and a small number of studies are involved. Measures to prevent a recurrence of abuses are appropriate, but the response of the medical profession to attempts to establish guidelines has been hyperbolic, and overblown, and inconsistent with the profession's crucial responsibility to patient advocacy. The issue has never been<i>whether</i>research would be conducted but<i>how</i>it would be conducted. Research is not necessarily deterred by restrictive guidelines. It is quite possible that research as a whole would be advanced if the public were reassured that no further abuses would be tolerated (<i>News &amp; Comment</i>25:8, 1974). Much of what has