Harvard Doctors Argue Ethics Of Fetal and Genetic Research

A Harvard professor advocated fetal research and two other professors argued opposing positions on genetic screening at meeting of the Harvard Medical Society Monday night.

Dr. David Nathan '51, professor of Pediatrics, said studies upon aborted fetuses should be decriminalized and studies on fetuses about to be aborted should be permitted with informed maternal consent. A 1974 Massachusetts law forbids such research.

"Such research leads to better care of living fetuses," Nathan said, citing the role of fetal research in the search of a cure for inherited diseases of red blood cells.

Dr. Bernard D. Davis '36, Lehman Professor of Bacterial Physiology, advocated the continuation of genetic screening of infants, which he claims was halted by "adverse pressure and publicity."

A Boston study began in 1969 to inform the parents of babies with XYY chromosomes that males with two Y chromosomes may exhibit criminal tendencies.

Publicity by a group called Science for The People last year forced the cessation of the study. The relation between XYY chromosomes and criminal behavior is unproven, the group maintained. Therefore the XYY study might act as a "self-fulfilling prophecy" by influencing parental relations with an XYY baby that might otherwise mature normally.

"This attack reflects the extreme environmentalism that has grown up in the radical left in America," Davis said.

Pseudo-Science

Dr. Jonathan R. Beckwith '57, professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and a leader of Science for The People, attacked the XYY study, and "much of human behavioral genetics," as a pseudo-science, which attempted to perpetuate unproven ideas in the public mind.

Beckwith added that a conversation with the parents of one of 15 XYY children identified in the study "confirmed all the worst fears we had about the study."

"Science and technology can be forces for progress, but in this society they have too frequently been used to control people," he said.

The audience of about 250 at the Medical School responded enthusiastically to Nathan's presentation, but was equally critical of Beckwith and Davis in a long, tense question period.