WGBH Journal; Ruth Hubbard; Test

Simply and successfully demonstrated the birth of test tube babies there is still considerable opposition to such research in this country. Test tube babies are defined as children grown from eggs fertilized out of the human body and then implanted in a woman as a living embryo. The federally funded or the federal funding of such research has been suspended in this country since 1975 but its success in Europe has brought the moral and ethical questions of opposition to the forefront once again. Over this past weekend the Ethics Advisory Committee of the Department of Health Education and Welfare kick kicked off a round of nationwide hearings on the subject right here in Boston. Reporter Steve Kirkwood talked with Harvard biology professor Ruth Hubbard about the nature of some of the current scientific and social opposition to research around Test tube babies. I don't think you can play god with people. And I think that what one is really doing you know playing God with the lives of unborn children who will be born. Professor Ruth Hubbard teaches popular courses on the subject of biology and women's and social issues at Harvard and some of the most important course material. Clue to the

social implications of genetic engineering professor Hubbard is not just opposed to the so-called test tube babies or in vitro fertilization and embryo transplants for solely social reasons. She also opposes them on scientific grounds the basis of my scientific objection is its unpredictability. The fact that this is a research that cannot be tested except on the individual the human individuals who are produced by it. And I don't think human beings should become guinea pigs for scientific curiosity and investigation. It is in the earliest stages of its development that an embryo is most vulnerable to damage from drugs or mild viral infections and hormones that can result in birth defects. The effect of human embryo transplant patients are largely unknown and raise strong social issues. When my children were small I had a woman help me with them and she had this marvelous thing that nobody's

ever asked to be born. And I think that that's correct. I think one has an enormous responsibility not to the unborn but to the board. And I think children who run Bears should not be laden with any more problems than they're going to have already merely by being human beings in our society and to lay on them. The whole issue of unexplored questions that arises out of in-vitro fertilization to me seems irresponsible and in a way selfish because one is doing it for one's own sake for one's own need to have children. And I think that need will ought to be satisfied. Some other way either by doing something else or

by adopting children or by offering foster care to children if one doesn't want the responsibility of adoption. There are or by working with children I mean there's a whole host of outlets for one's need to nurture other than producing one's own biological children through technologies that may place enormous burdens on those children. Of course government funded test tube baby research isn't an issue in a vacuum. Other countries are doing it now successfully as we've heard in the news. Professor Hubbard You may not agree that a test tube baby is right for an infertile white woman who can't find a baby of her own race to adopt. But many of these women seem to want the procedure should not governments support this research. Why should we let the lead in this area go to some foreign country. This one we have a relatively easy answer at least I feel it is because this country

by and large has been more conservative than other countries. The crimes of drug and medical technology that is and we have the glaring example to show that it can pay off that other countries allowed the drug on the market that produce large numbers. Severely crippled children we did not because we were a little more careful and conservative perhaps by accident. But anyway we were and this this has put us into a very fortunate position. Why not let women take a chance if they want to so badly have babies. Why is it that women feel unfulfilled feel that they have not lived unless they have

babies. That surely in my mind depends on the options that are available to women in our society and to the whole value system in our society that essentially says that a woman hasn't lived if she hasn't had a child. So I my my sympathy is fully with these women. But I believe that. Those who are counseling them and leading them on to pin their hopes on technological solutions to their problems are not helping them any. That it would be much better to help these women understand why it is that they are so totally dependent. And her not Choudary Ed their only possible moment in life.

Dr. Ruth Hubbard Harvard biology professor on the social and scientific perils of test tube babies technology she says does not have all the answers for social problems. For GBH Journal I'm Steve Carr would. Have a device on a while to Jennifer a Gallus and the deaths of these children has brought child abuse to the forefront of the news in Massachusetts. The question asked by reporters state legislators in the public is why weren't these three children permanently removed from their parents. Yet several weeks ago a lawsuit was filed charging the children are too often taken away from their parents. The people in the middle of this dilemma are state social workers and an occasional psychiatrist to them has left the decision of whether a child belongs with his or her parents. Amy sands talked with social worker Helen Gazey and

psychiatrist Marty stammer who work with troubled families at the bay Cove day sit day center for children. When you're in the situation where a child getting hurt is your first instinct to grab a kid and take it away. You heard any. No the reason is because we learned after a period of time that the child's Nanjing approach doesn't necessarily work that you have to think in terms of what is going to do the child and when it's going to the parent and what is best in the long run for a child. As we've seen too many situations where a child has been removed from the home the family has not been worked with and the child has bounced from one foster home to another with a terrible self-image. And it ends up that is life is much worse than it would have been had he been able to be maintained in his own home with the care improved.

You want to add to them. I think part of what Helen is saying is that we don't view child abuse as a problem of children as much as of a symptom of some kind of family dysfunction and that the unit of treatment is the family and not the individual child although the child's life may be at stake and we don't minimize that. But the the the unit of treatment is the entire family and the consideration has to be given to what happens to the parents and what happens to the individual child. But. You know my first emotional reaction is if a child is being hit you know I just want to do something bad and I would imagine if you walk into a situation either of you where you see that the kid is bruised or hurt you know in some way that it's not your first reaction or what do you do with your feelings or isn't that how you react anymore after certain amount certain amount of experience which I think I said this before one knows that it is a crucial decision that you're making if you are going to remove a child and

to take that kind of responsibility it almost feels like too much power because you want to affect two people's lives the child of a parent greatly tremendously. You better know what you don't want. You know we're talking with him about the feelings that come up you know in the marriage service they say what God has joined let no man sever. And there is there is no clinical field or legal field that I know of that people run around looking for married couples who should be divorced then who are then legally forced to divorce. I never heard of that but that that it's terrifying the idea that somebody is biologically organically tied to these parents they're born into the family and that someone would come along and say hey this shouldn't be this this unit should be dismembered. We should dismantle this unit it's dysfunctional. I mean that's gets close to playing god it's very scary. And.

Do you get scared both ways you know you have the nightmare what if I do this perpetrate this encourage this separation and it's not necessary. Then I've erred dramatize a child here traumatized this is has a sort of a sarcastic quality to it I'm talking about really destroy somebody's soul. When you take a kid away from a parent and you've destroyed their soul and they've got a hole in their inside their heart that's you know tremendous that that will take years to repair. So that's a heavy move. On the other hand you don't want to be sitting on top of a case and read about your patient in a newspaper and and see that somehow or other you missed the boat by a mile which is why when when we work with cases like this we like to see people very very frequently so that we know what's going on from day to day. If we don't know what's going on from day to day then we become very distraught about the situation.

Helen how do you know. Money I'm not asking to join in with this. How do you know when a situation is so dangerous to a child that the child's life is threatened or physical well-being is threatened very seriously in that it's time to recommend that the child be taken away. How do you know. Well I guess. It depends on what kind of progress one sees in the work with the family. If one begins to see. That progress is not taking place that things are going downhill in the documentation of what's going on between a parent and a child. Then it begins to look as though there's needs to be a cooling off period. And you know what a time to separate them whether it's a temporary time or a longer term placement of the child. You know you can know that I mean when you say how do you know when it's time what you look at is the history and you need a very good history and you need a very

current history where you know week by week what's going on who's employed who is unemployed who was drinking who's not drinking who's upset about what and what the chances are that what they're upset about will be resolved and. When things get bad you see deterioration in many many areas besides the childcare the food in the household the preparation of food housing situation the heat the rent the relationships at the work place in the community. These things also bear on the situation. So you when you asked what makes a parent despair. I think it's the feeling that help isn't available. But if a helping agency is unable to help that really is frightening Stadler and social worker Helen talking with reporters. There is another world wide disease which has reached epidemic proportions according to a number of

nationally recognized gerontologists. And last night Wright Panthera founder Maggie Coon came to Boston to report on a cure for the disease. Gender phobia is a name Social scientists are giving the malady. It is the unreasonable fear of old people and growing old. Seventy three year old Q who founded the Gray Panthers when she was 65 told a four hall forum audience last night in Boston that the growth of ageism in America is growing and government programs set up to help older Americans are isolating the same people they're trying to serve. Khune also cited some interesting statistics which could have a profound effect on the way Americans live in the future. There are about 20 to 23 million people over 65 in the United States today. And it's estimated that by the year 2020 someone has said the year of a perfect vision that there will be between 30 and 40 million people over 65 almost a doubling of that figure that we have today. And the

graying of America is corresponding. In fact when the world population because we also have the graying of the universe according to the 1970 population figures of the U. And population center there were two hundred and ninety one people in the world population over 65. And by the year 2000 2000 they estimate conservatively that there will be five hundred and ninety five million people over 65 are an extraordinary increase. And if we persist in our present policies of isolating people if Ridge since the Administration on Aging and the Older Americans Act is continually look at what a dim and dismal future we've got ahead.

In the year 2020 when the owner outnumber the young who will do the work who will pay the bill because all of us will be stashed away in old folks homes. We will we self isolating in some city in Leisure World rotting on the beaches in St. Petersburg. Only there be you know twice as many of us doing that. My good human has organized the several thousand Great Panther members into a number of national task forces on housing health hunger and a number of other problems related to the elderly in our fight against AIDS discrimination. One of the major areas the Panthers are zeroing in on is the pattern of social segregation which government and society itself force upon the elderly. The Panthers are working to challenge social segregation but they are not restricting their efforts to the elderly. It's segregation let me remind you begins in nursery school. Little tots are taught to be socialize with their

peers and it's assumed that they can no longer learn with their families or their neighbors they have to be sent to nursery school where they're going to be associated with children their own age right. You know this all of you know that's the only way to do it. And particularly if you're a child in a small family or the only child of course you get sent to nursery school. And this kind of rigid segregation resists all through life. And the ultimate age segregation is the nursing home you see when your own sick and frail and confused. But what life is a continuum and we have chapter Depp in the little pieces and it is a truth to move from one segment to the other. So that we've got to begin to look at the wholeness of human existence the continuum of life the continuity that it provides rather than the discontinuity that we

have as we age segregate the ghetto was a should of young people on college campuses and in high school is just as bad for them. And I say this in the on the roster of A in the hall of a great university as it is for us to isolate ourselves in a retirement home or to settle for for a kind of age segregated existence in the senior high rise Gray Panthers founder Maggie Q Speaking last night at the ford hall forum in Boston. Her entire address can be heard Sunday afternoon at noon right here on WGBH radio. From September to November during election years the voters become the object of political

overkill from the media as well as from the candidates accusing statements and assumptions about the foregone conclusions of election results or the subject of much of what we see and hear. An issue which is also the subject of lines commentary tonight among the riddles to add to this puzzling political campaign in Massachusetts is the early assumption by some political writers that the Democrats will win the governorship in spite of defections of liberal Democrats. This anticipation creeps into political columns sometimes an explicit reference to Mr. King quote who is expected to win and quote This can hardly be based merely on the disparate numbers of the registered party members that show three times as many Democrats as Republicans. For this is not prevented Republicans from holding the governorship more of the last 30 years than Democrats. That fact was almost spelled out in the recent newspaper photograph of the four living Republican next governors supporting Mr. Hatch. Fifth in this period was Christian a herder. Now

dead. That's equal to the number of Democratic governors in this time and the tenure of the Republicans on average lasted longer. To be sure Mr Hatch would have to add most of the independents to the Democratic defectors to build a winning number. But that's been true of all Republican victories since levered Saltonstall won three times. Only Robert Redford back in 1948 was denied re-election. This tendency of mass juries to elect Republicans to govern a heavily Democratic state finds a parallel in the most populous state California also heavily Democratic in numbers but hospitable enough to Republican for governor to have elected Earl Warren and Ronald Reagan for 22 of the last 35 years. California also offers a father son resemblance to Massachusetts in the Browns though the elder ex-governor Brown seems to have less influence with his son the current governor than Speaker Tip O'Neill with his lieutenant governor son Tip's paternal advice is credited with his son's

acceptance of his uncomfortable position on the ticket with King for the sake of party regularity. Party like regularity is very much the name of the game with Democratic Party leaders as they seek to dispel their nightmare of the greatest ticket splitting since Ryan. There's pressure to close ranks will bet heavily on the discomfited friends of Governor Dukakis as election day nears. Already influential voices from the defeated secretary Gazi through Senator Kennedy to the president are echoing the traditional refrain now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. But the bitter tone of the governorship race will not make it easier for the primary crossovers to fall back into line. The restraint of Paul Tsongas over Senator Brooks problems is in conspicuous contrast to the passion of the other top candidates. The tone of the governorship race was set in the first hour of King's primary victory when a king campaign aide was quoted. We put all the hate groups in one big pot

and let it boil and quote King is repudiated this and is denied it. But Hatch said in calling King an extremist King's attacks on Hatch have called him ineffectual lackluster a millionaire whose Beverly Farms residents isolates him from the problems of the street. Hatch is a ten governor candidate William Cohen charges Cain with inciting class warfare by his reference to Hatch's wealth and residence. All Justice Holmes used to say he lived in Beverley by the depot. A sly dig at residents of the neighbor town who gave it the fancy name of Manchester by the sea. Being called a millionaire hasn't hurt either Republican or Democratic politicians in this state. Most of the Republican Governors of recent decades have been rich man. Senator Kennedy has survived the curse of riches Cowan's class warfare charges for shop enough to bring the name of the Republican lieutenant governor candidate into the news governor and vice presidential candidates have any effect on an election. There's a

considerable body of opinion that they don't. King has the support of a more familiar political name. But how much support O'Neill resisted the urging of Governor Dukakis friends that he withdraw from the king ticket. After some weeks of consideration he announced support of his running mate but choked up over the word endorsement is indeterminant situation must limit his campaign effectiveness. Hatch on the other hand has encountered as the class warfare charge indicates a colleague capable of exercising the hatchet man role that Senator Dole performed on the national ticket with President Ford. Whether such a performance if it develops will boomerang as dulls was believed to do something. Hatch may want to ponder. A senator has now taken a link to a lieutenant to fight for him. Senator Brock and only his lawyer to join him in his quarrel with his Senate with the Senate committee and his attack on the press. The senator's predicament denies his Republican colleagues the prospect of such a coattail

ride as a senior candidate sometimes provides the rest of his ticket. Senator Brooks difficulties grew out of his divorce but divorce itself is no longer felt a political handicap as in 1964 it was to Nelson Rockefeller. The changed climate over divorce was illustrated by a television commercial during last night's World Series game. My wife got the house but I got the Sony. This cracked must have been certified as safe by the advertising agency for Sony dependence on party regularity meets its test at a time when regularity seems about as weak as cambric tea. Congressional Democrats have divided on key issues taxes dams energy as much as if they were to parties now that their home for their own campaigns it will be interesting to see how they align on the touchy political condition here and how much difference it makes. Let's GBH journal for this evening. The program was produced and directed by Marshall Hertz our

production assistants today were Tom Fontanella and Newk Walker. Our engineer Steve PepsiCo. I'm Greg Fitzgerald. Have a pleasant evening.