Boks Talk on Freshman Life, Abortion

Sissela A. Bok, research fellow in Medical Ethics offered about 100 people-some tentative but complicated views on the ethics of abortions yesterday at the Radcliffe Institute.

"In a way, there's a clash between protesting inroads on the individual and increasing the inroad abortion represents---protecting children more from their patents and saying you can only kill them before they're born," Bok said.

Acute Dilemma

The dilemma becomes more acute she said, as the fetus becomes more stable. She suggested that abortions be permissible until the eighteenth week of pregnancy, but she expressed uncertainty about later abortions, inviting comments from the audience on this and other points.

"The problem is compounded when there's been prior genetic counseling and the mother has decided to take the risk of a genetic deficiency," she said. "Should one begin lives, planning to throw half of them away?"

"Once you have voluntarily begun a pregnancy," she said. "I think your reason for aborting must have to do with the welfare of the child, not just that you've changed your mind--at least from a moral point of view."

But in response to a question, she acknowledged difficulty in defining the term "voluntarily." "The reality changes immediately when the person becomes pregnant," she said.

Inquisition

In early abortions, she said, an inquiry into such matters is "intolerable, a sort of inquisition the mother has to go through."

"Later perhaps one could require medical or other acceptable reasons," she added, expressing hope that improvements in technology will make earlier abortions easter and commoner.

"There's a great contradiction in the respect for prenatal life we see, without all the respect that should go with it for life after birth." Bok said in response to a questioner who had derided President Nixon's opposing abortion because of "the sanctity of human life."

"But we could say that we have to have this as a kind of taboo, because once we begin we don't know where to stop--that if we permit large numbers of infanticides we may not be able to protect ourselves further," she added.