The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MS. WARNER: Good evening. I'm Margaret Warner in Washington.

MR. MAC NEIL: I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After the News Summary tonight, White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler and others discuss the President's possible claim of immunity from lawsuits like that brought by Paula Jones. Medical Correspondent Fred De Sam Lazaro reports from Britain on ethical questions raised by new reproductive techniques, and Charlayne Hunter-Gault continues her conversations on American values with former President Jimmy Carter. NEWS SUMMARY

MS. WARNER: Four Muslim fundamentalists were sentenced today to 240 years in prison each for the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. Last year's blast killed six people and injured more than a thousand. Government prosecutors said the attack was part of a larger conspiracy to blow up other New York targets, including the United Nations. Prosecutors allege the fundamentalists' motive was to punish the U.S. for supporting Israel and Egypt. U.S. District Judge Kevin Duffy said he based the sentences on the life expectancy of the six people who died in the blast plus additional time for two other counts. The defendants, who range in age from twenty-six to thirty-four, were also fined $250,000 each. Robin.

MR. MAC NEIL: The Justice Department today announced a $46 million racial discrimination settlement against the Denny's Restaurant Chain. The Department said it was the largest settlement ever reached against a public facility for alleged discrimination. The agreement stems from two lawsuits which claimed the Denny's refused to serve black customers or force them to pay before service. The assistant attorney general for civil rights had this to say at a Washington news conference.

DeVAL PATRICK, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights: With today's action the message is clear, there will be a high price to pay for unlawful indignity. And the Justice Department will exact that price wherever the law is violated. Unfair standards employed by restaurants must no longer be standard fare.

MR. MAC NEIL: In agreeing to the settlement, Denny's parent company said it did not have a policy of discrimination, but Chairman Jerome Richardson said there was a public perception of an adverse relationship between Denny's and its African-American customers. The U.S. and Japan have agreed to go back to the trade negotiating table. Talks were suspended three months ago in a dispute over the U.S. demand that they agree to quantify measurements of open markets. The negotiations are aimed at reducing the $59 billion U.S. trade deficit with Japan. The Fox Broadcasting Company today wrested twelve television stations from the major networks, eight from CBS, three from ABC, and one from NBC. Fox pulled off the coup by investing $500 million in New World Communications, which owns the 12 stations. In return, New World agreed to make the stations Fox affiliates.

MS. WARNER: House Republicans stepped up pressure today for congressional hearings into the Whitewater affair. Congressman John Doolittle and 91 Republican co-signers introduced a resolution calling for five House Committees to begin hearings no later than August 15th. The hearings would look into charges surrounding President and Mrs. Clinton's real estate venture with the owner of a failed Arkansas savings & loan. Democratic leaders are still negotiating with the Republicans on when the hearing should begin. We'll have more on Whitewater and other legal problems facing the President right after the News Summary.

MR. MAC NEIL: The U.S. Navy fired warning shots at two ships trying to enter Haitian waters. The Navy was enforcing UN sanctions against Haiti which took effect over the weekend. On Saturday, shots were fired at a Bahamian ship carrying oil but that failed to stop it from reaching Haiti's port. Early today, the Navy fired on a Panamanian ship, forcing it to stop. At a NATO meeting in Brussels today Russia agreed to join the alliance's partnership for peace program. Russia's defense minister said Russia had agreed to join without any preconditions but did not indicate a start date. Russia had been asking for special status within the program in light of its position as a nuclear power. Neither Russia nor any of the former Warsaw Pact countries have been granted full membership in NATO.

MS. WARNER: In South Africa today, Nelson Mandela delivered his first State of the Nation Address in his new role as president. Mark Austin of Independent Television News reports.

MARK AUSTIN: Another milestone on South Africa's historic journey. President Nelson Mandela arriving for the opening session of the country's truly democratic parliament. A day of ceremony but the post election euphoria is fast giving way to the sobering ways of challenges ahead. President Mandela unveiling his plans to wipe away the injustices of apartheid and to restore what he called human dignity and freedom.

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA, South Africa: Freedom from want; freedom from hunger; freedom from deprivation; freedom from ignorance; freedom from suppression; and freedom from fear.

MARK AUSTIN: He said in the next five years billions of pounds would be spent on creating jobs and housing for South Africa's oppressed black majority. For many, free health care and education, areas where blacks have suffered years of neglect.

PRESIDENT NELSON MANDELA: We shall carry out this plan within the context of a policy aimed at building a strong and growing economy which will benefit all our people.

MARK AUSTIN: Those words aimed at reassuring big business here and foreign investors who fear that massive social spending could bankrupt the country. But that's the enormous long-term problem facing President Mandela, how to fulfill the expectations of millions of under privileged blacks, while at the same time maintaining business confidence here, confidence crucial to the future of the new South Africa.

MS. WARNER: More than 200 Muslim worshipers were crushed to death during a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. After more than 1400 people died in a similar incident four years ago, Saudi officials tried to tighten crowd control at the site but officials said security was more difficult this year because of the large number of worshippers. A record 2 1/2 million Muslims have already made the pilgrimage or Hajj. It is a religious duty for all Muslims to visit Mecca at least once in their lives.

MR. MAC NEIL: That's the summary of our top stories. Now it's on to the President's immunity claim, high-tech babies in Britain, and Jimmy Carter on American values. FOCUS - PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY

MS. WARNER: President Clinton's possible claim of immunity against a private lawsuit is our lead tonight. The President is facing a sexual harassment suit filed against him in federal court in Arkansas earlier this month by Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee. She alleges that then Gov. Clinton made unwanted sexual advances to her in a hotel room in 1991. But can a sitting President be sued for events that happened before his presidency? It's a legal question that has never been tested in court. The White House recently asked the Justice Department to research the issue, and with us now to discuss the immunity question is White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler. He's joined by two lawyers with opposing views. Susan Bloch teaches constitutional law at Georgetown University Law School, and Kenneth Starr served as solicitor general in the Bush administration and now practices law in Washington. Mr. Cutler, welcome.

MR. CUTLER: How are you, Margaret?

MS. WARNER: Very well, thanks. Is the President going to claim immunity in this lawsuit?

MR. CUTLER: Well, Mr. Bennett, his private lawyer, is going to make the decision as to what he will claim. Let me say first that to me immunity is the wrong word to use for this situation. The issue is more whether when a suit has been brought against a sitting President when it should be tried and whether a stay is appropriate for the balance of his term. This -- as I think everyone here will agree -- is the first private civil damage suit that has ever been brought against a sitting President whether it involved alleged conduct occurred, allegedly occurred before he took office, or during the time he was in office. And it's a case of first impression that I think all of us would also agree is worth being considered by the Supreme Court.

MS. WARNER: So you'd rather have the phrase "stay," not even "limited immunity?"

MR. CUTLER: Another way to describe it is what Prof. Larry Tribe's term of "temporal immunity," i.e., a suit can be brought but while he is in office, it cannot go forward.

MS. WARNER: Whether it's one or two terms?

MR. CUTLER: All you can decide today is one term. If President Clinton is lucky enough to be elected to a second term, the court could consider whether the stay should be extended.

MS. WARNER: Now, how long do you think it will take to resolve just this immunity or stay issue?

MR. CUTLER: Well, if I'm right that first -- if Mr. Bennett makes such a claim -- and if I'm right, the claim is worthy of being considered by the Supreme Court, I think it would probably take well over a year, perhaps longer, to get it to the Supreme Court and have it decided.

MS. WARNER: And all that time, of course, the lawyers involved in the case, no one would ever get to the substance of the issue at hand.

MR. CUTLER: One -- that should be the consequence if this kind of a claim is advanced.

MS. WARNER: Of course, your critics charge that this is exactly what the strategy is, to just simply delay this and delay the substance of it so long that the discovery phase never even begins, that is, of course, the stage in which lawyers can question the President and others who might have knowledge of this event.

MR. CUTLER: I know the media would love to have a show like that to report on. I know that certain segments of the public would like to have a show of that kind. But if you really value the presidency, if you consider that the President is "the" chief executive, he has all the executive power under the Constitution, and if a court could be persuaded that the time it would take the President to prepare for discovery not only of himself but if it may be very well true in this case where a pattern of practice, of conduct is alleged, there is discovery of numerous other potential third party witnesses. The President's time would be involved in helping his lawyers prepare for that kind of discovery. If you value the presidency, do you really want the President putting his time in on this kind of an exhibition?

MS. WARNER: Do you --

MR. CUTLER: The entire presidency could turn on the occurrence of a trial like this.

MS. WARNER: And do you think -- putting on your political hat for a minute -- that's there any political risk for the President in asserting that his job as President is just too important to be bothered by or take up time by a sexual harassment charge?

MR. CUTLER: Well, I think that's a question of risks, and we have here a situation in which Ms. Jones had 20 months before the President took office in which she could have brought this suit. She had an additional 16 months during his time in office in which she did not bring this suit. There are only two and a half years left to the balance of his term. What will be lost in balancing her interests against the interests of the presidency and coming to some overall judgment as to the public interest if it were deferred for an additional period?

MS. WARNER: Well, let's open this up to the two of you. Ken Starr, what do you think of this possible claim of immunity as just outlined by Lloyd Cutler --

MR. STARR: Well, I think --

MS. WARNER: -- or stay?

MR. STARR: Yes, immunity or stay, and I think it is helpful that, that Lloyd is not suggesting that the President enjoys immunity. It's a much more limited claim. And I think that is wise, because immunity, as it has traditionally been developed in our law, and I agree with that law, with respect to immunity, has to do with the President's official act and not the President's private acts, either as President or those acts alleged to have taken place before his presidency. But I do have problems, nonetheless, with the idea of an absolute rule which really is being suggested here, of an automatic stay to await the completion of the President's tenure in office. I do think that there are devices and mechanisms that district judges can -- trial judges can employ to most protect the schedule of the President and the dignity of the President. But I don't think that we should be carving out rules that apply to the President alone. If we were talking about any other person, the Chief Justice of the United States, or the Senate Majority Leader, we would have to respond consistent with the rules of law. And I think that is the appropriate rule with respect to private, alleged private conduct. In that respect, I think the President is one of us and should be treated like one of us, except with respect and with accommodating the President's schedule, which I do think it was obviously very important and most district judges would, I'm confident, respect the President's needs with respect to schedule. But we don't say to the President, don't bother to file your tax returns because we know that you're busy with very compelling issues of state. We ask the President to obey the law and to be like other citizens, except with respect to protecting his actions as the President of the United States.

MS. WARNER: Well, Susan Bloch, how do you see it?

MS. BLOCH: Well, I think that Ken is overlooking an important case which is not exactly on point but is very helpful, and that's the Nixon vs. Fitzgerald Case where the Supreme Court said that the President is unique. And in that case it was absolute immunity for official acts while President. But two of their concerns in that case that led them to say that these suits are just too burdensome on the presidency as an office were the fact that defending lawsuits are incredibly time consuming and distracting, and the likelihood that if you allow them, they will proliferate. The presidency is a very attractive target, and there will be more and more of these suits so that when we consider the intrusiveness on the office of the presidency, first there's the putting off of this private damage action for a period of time, this concept of the temporal immunity or a stay, the public interest requires that the office of the presidency be protected.

MS. WARNER: But, Mr. Cutler, what about the argument Mr. Starr makes, which is not even the President should be above the law and that we do ask him to file a tax return, for instance, and to comply with other legal obligations?

MR. CUTLER: I fully agree with that, and I think the issue is one that has to be judged in each case as to the needs of the plaintiff against the duties and burdens on the President of defending the action while he is in office. If this were a case, for example, of a divorce proceeding or a failure to pay child support that had been ordered by a court previously, or if the President were to build something on a vacation property that his neighbors said violated the zoning laws where immediate relief is required, then I would think a case could be made that it ought to go forward because there ought to be immediate relief. No immediate relief is required here. This case was brought on the 364th day of the third year after the alleged incident occurred. If the burden's on the President of defending, take a hypothetical, let's assume it would take 25 percent of his time over a year to defend this case against her need to have a judgment in a case in which she waited three years before bringing it, including twenty months before he was even in office, what is lost from the standpoint of the public interest in asking her to wait?

MS. WARNER: Well, then would you feel differently if let's say this alleged thing had occurred only the day before he became President? I mean, is it because she waited so long?

MR. CUTLER: I think that would weigh into the balance. Suppose there were 20 libel suits filed against the President. Would he have to defend all those libel suits?

MS. WARNER: Well, what do you think of this distinction that Mr. Cutler is trying to draw here?

MR. STARR: Well, I do think that Lloyd is essentially saying let's have a rule for this case, that under all the circumstances, a wise and judicious judge would say the President would not have to face this particular lawsuit during his term. But he's left open a lot of possibilities. And that isn't immunity. It's really a judgment call. It's not even a constitutional issue. It's just case management and case handling.

MR. CUTLER: That would put it on the Constitution, Ken. Go ahead.

MR. STARR: Well, I think if we create the exceptions that Lloyd is willing to create -- and I think he's wise to create them -- child custody, divorce issues, and so forth -- that you can't say to all civil litigants with respect to the President, please wait till the year 2001. Once we say that, then we're out of the realm of constitutional demands and simply into the issue of wise policy. And --

MS. WARNER: And what about the issue that Prof. Bloch raised, which is that if this does go forward, the President is an awfully inviting target and it just opens a new avenue for his opponents and enemies to use, this President or successive Presidents?

MR. STARR: Yes, I think that's a serious and weighty concern. And I would address that concern this way. The Congress sits to address exactly this kind of problem. It has done so with respect to the military, that is to say it has waved the kinds of considerations that Lloyd and Susan have articulated. These are powerful considerations. But it's Congress that says, well, certain kinds of lawsuits should be able to go forward, and this is in the context of individuals who enter military service. I'm not suggesting that statute should be applied to the President. I'm just saying if this proves to be a serious concern -- and we don't know that it will be -- but if it proves to be a serious concern - - that's exactly the kind of policy question that Congress should attend to and say yes, there's no immunity from criminal prosecutions, yes, there's no immunity from divorce actions but yes if it's simply a civil damage.

MS. WARNER: Well, Prof. Bloch, what about the argument that, in fact, there's really harm, there is harm done to Paula Jones here, if she has to wait six years after the event or ten years after the event, everybody's memories are going to be blurred, and, in fact, something is lost by asking her and the case to wait?

MS. BLOCH: Well, there's no question by putting off someone's lawsuit you are hurting it to some extent. And it is a question of balancing. The issue here is the intrusion on the office of the presidency versus her need for a quick adjudication. And I agree with Lloyd, that when you try and weigh that, the public interest, I think, comes out much more strongly. I just would like -- on the side of protecting the office of the presidency -- want to respond to something Ken just said. I agree that if Congress wants to act and can act here, it should, and that would be fine. But I don't -- it doesn't have to. Constitutionally, it's not required that the courts wait in this case for Congress to --

MS. WARNER: For Congress to step in and say the President should be protected from this until he leaves office.

MS. BLOCH: In certain circumstances, right. In that, I mean, Ken was suggesting that the military statute is a model, and I think it would be fine if Congress had the time and the inclination to work on this, but I think it's wrong to assume that the courts have to wait. They didn't wait in the Nixon vs. Fitzgerald case that I mentioned earlier, and constitutionally the courts are empowered to interpret the Constitution.

MR. CUTLER: Margaret, if I could give an example that rests on constitutional principles, if a state starts a criminal prosecution which the defendant contends violates the federal Constitution in some way or another, there are cases in which the defendant brings an action in the federal court to stay the -- to attack the criminal prosecution and ask the federal court to take jurisdiction right away. This is known as the so-called "Younger Doctrine." And what the Supreme Court has said is you must wait until you've exhausted your state remedy and appeal from any state court conviction or whatever it is, and stays the independent federal action. It is a matter of balancing the equities in each particular case. Now, that rests on the constitutional principle that the states ought to be allowed to proceed with their prosecutions and let their constitutionality of what they do be judged on appeal by a state court to the Supreme Court. This rests on a similar constitutional principle about the duties of the President. And if the burden of the case is significant and the progress of the case would damage the President and the presidency, which I care about even more, then there is the basis for a court to invoke its jurisdiction to grant a stay.

MR. STARR: With respect to what our constitutional system is all about, I think the dignity of the presidency and the rightful conduct of that office is of paramount importance and justifies protecting the President against the kinds of lawsuits that history tells us presidents are subjected to. But the earliest point made here is that this is a novel situation, which suggests to me that we elect as President of the United States not perfect individuals but people who have conducted themselves in a way that at least thus far in our history has not given right to private civil litigation pending against them. And I do think it's a very serious step to take to say that the President of the United States is simply too busy to respond to lawsuits the way others have to even if we're willing to bend over backwards to protect his schedule and so forth, but to tell a person who has a grievance, rightfully or wrongfully, you must wait until the year 2001 or whatever is quite astonishing. It's unprecedented for this kind of claim to be suggested. No President heretofore I think has seriously suggested that they should be completely --

MS. WARNER: But the court has never been ever asked -- I mean, he's never been sued before. There's no President that's ever been sued.

MR. STARR: But in the context of all the discussion, including Susan's reliance on Nixon against Fitzgerald, I think it is worthy noting there -- and I think that case was rightly decided, concluding that there is official immunity for the acts that the President takes as President. But there one of the considerations that the court emphasized and picks up on Lloyd's point about his younger point with respect to allow the state proceedings to go forward, remedies were available. And Mr. Fitzgerald, himself, the whistleblower who felt he had been unlawfully fired at the direction of President Nixon, nonetheless, had a full remedy available to him. He had had his job restored with back pay. That's not so in the average civil litigation case. That is where you go for redress.

MS. WARNER: Mr. Cutler, let me ask you this. What impact has the filing of this lawsuit had on the President so far?

MR. CUTLER: Well, he is doing his best to carry on his duties and be President. But just ask yourself if a lawsuit containing these allegations had been brought against you and you believed they were false, wouldn't that have a serious impact on you or any one of the three of us? Of course, it's had an impact.

MS. WARNER: And how would you describe that impact?

MR. CUTLER: It's a burden on him to be under such accusations. I'm not saying that up to now it has consumed a major portion of its time, but if it goes to trial, it would consume a very major portion of his time.

MS. WARNER: And have you decided --

MR. CUTLER: I would like to say about the 200 years in history, it's only in the last 10 years that we've had the litigation explosion which leads to lawsuits about everything under the sun for kinds of conduct, for alleged conduct that people just didn't sue on another over years ago.

MS. BLOCH: And the talk shows and the book contracts, all of that I think is going to promote more of this if we allow it. I don't think -- I don't think it's helpful to think about the fact that we haven't had many of these before, I think, because people assumed you couldn't sue the President and the litigation explosion

MR. CUTLER: And what particular subjects would be legitimate for a hearing at this time.

MS. WARNER: Before we go, I do want to ask you about the role of the Justice Department in this, because there's been some question about that. You asked the Justice Department for research into this issue about immunity.

MR. CUTLER: And they've given us a number of materials about it.

MS. WARNER: But not an opinion. Why not an opinion?

MR. CUTLER: Because Mr. Bennett is going to do his own research, and he will state the President's -- he will assert the President's defense. And the Department of Justice in every case -- and there aren't that many -- in which this kind of an issue has come up, the Department of Justice has filed a brief in the institutional interest of the presidency. It's for them, for the attorney general to decide what position they would take, and the Department of Justice in its press guidance has said it is getting ready to prepare a brief in the event its opinion is requested by a court or it decides to file an Amicus Brief on its own motion.

MS. WARNER: And do you have any doubt what that opinion would be, given that the Justice Department's job is to --

MR. CUTLER: I don't know.

MS. WARNER: -- protect him.

MR. CUTLER: I wish I knew, but I don't know what that opinion would be. You've heard me on what I think it ought to be.

MS. WARNER: Well, thank you, Mr. Cutler, very much, Ms. Bloch, and Mr. Starr. Thank you very much. Robin.

MR. MAC NEIL: Still ahead on the NewsHour, reproductive ethics in Britain and Jimmy Carter on American values. FOCUS - FERTILITY RIGHTS

MR. MAC NEIL: Next, the ethics of high-tech babies. Medical technology has been extending the frontier of human reproduction. In Britain, it has started an ethical debate over how and when to use these advances. Medical Correspondent Fred De Sam Lazaro of public station KCTA-Minneapolis-St. Paul reports from London.

MR. LAZARO: Britain can lay claim as the cradle of the reproductive revolution. It was 16 years ago that Louise Brown was born in London, the world's first test tube baby. Today, thousands of these in vitro babies have been born around the world, a fair number under the care of Dr. Robert Winston at London's Hammersmith Hospital. On this day, Richard Luke was inducted into Winston's wall of fame. Like his newborn sister, Georgina, Richard is the natural child of his parents, but because of problems they had conceiving naturally, the fertilization of sperm and egg was done in a laboratory. For families like the Lukes, the photo album begins not on day one, not even at the ultrasonic fetal image, but at the embryonic stage.

LINDA LUKE: They're broken into and three cells, and that proves that there's actually a baby there at four weeks and six weeks after implantation.

MR. LUKE: And this is obviously the happy guy when Georgina was given to us by God.

MR. LAZARO: With considerable intervention from doctors at Hammersmith Hospital. The Lukes are among the more routine in vitro cases today, a married couple whose lab-created embryo is implanted into the mother's womb for a normal pregnancy. However, recent variants of this technology have generated considerable controversy. Late last year, a black woman married to a white man used an egg donated by a white woman to have a white baby. And at least two, older, post-menopausal women sought to become pregnant. They were rejected for fertility treatment by doctors in Great Britain and eventually sought help from a physician in Italy.

DR. ROBERT WINSTON, Fertility Specialist: I think as soon as we start tampering with biology, I think we run quite serious risks. I've actually no doubt at all that if we continue to treat women of 60 and get them pregnant, eventually one of those women will die.

MR. LAZARO: Winston has campaigned publicly and reluctantly against using in vitro fertilization for anyone other than younger, married couples. He fears the sensational cases have dealt a setback to a science that depends heavily on public support, especially for the volunteer donation of eggs which are in short supply.

DR. ROBERT WINSTON: In this country, there are 600,000 women of reproductive age who are infertile, probably in the United States closer to 3 million. And in this country, of the 600,000 women who've been -- who are infertile, in the last seven years there have been about 7,000 IFV babies. So we're looking at a scarce resource and a resource which is being threatened. And I think we have not only a moral need to justify what we're doing but also a practical need to make sure that we're doing things which are wise and seen to be safe by the general public.

MR. LAZARO: Researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland added to the controversy surrounding fertility treatment late last year when they proposed using the eggs from aborted fetuses as a means of relieving the shortage of donor eggs. Dr. David Baird is an embryologist at the university.

DR. DAVID BAIRD, Embryologist: I don't think a lot of people realize that you're born withall the eggs you're going to ever have -- or a woman is -- and each day a certain number of those very primitive eggs are matured in the body, and that process takes about six months.

MR. LAZARO: Baird and colleagues have been studying ways to mature primitive eggs in the laboratory, getting them to a stage where they can be fertilized. The research has shown promise in tests on laboratory animals.

DR. DAVID BAIRD: But there comes a point when if you want to translate that into clinical practice, you've got to use human eggs, and the point of using fetal tissue would be that there are many eggs, primitive eggs present in the ovaries of fetuses.

MR. LAZARO: It's an idea long discussed in embryology circles, but British public reaction has ranged from astonishment to loud protest.

DAME JILL KNIGHT, Member of Parliament: There are occasions, I think, when this House must make it clear that scientists sometimes go too far.

MR. LAZARO: In April, Dame Jill Knight proposed an outright ban on the use of fetal eggs for fertility treatment. That kind of sanction is rarely imposed on British medicine.

GEOFFREY DICKENS, Member of Parliament: And it can never, never be right for a fetus to produce a child. It can never be right.

DR. DAVID BAIRD: I feel this is almost a matter of private morality. I think there should be public discussion, but I just wonder what harm it's doing to society if individuals choose to either donate their eggs or the eggs of their fetus or receive them.

MR. LAZARO: The specter that seems to ruffle most feathers is one of a child being born belonging to a mother who never existed. That sounds awfully demonic to a lot of people.

DR. DAVID BAIRD: I think it may to some people; to others it doesn't.

MR. LAZARO: But critics have practical fears about the use of fetal eggs as well.

DAME JILL KNIGHT: To have to admit to a child that his mother was never allowed even to be born or, indeed, to herald the start of a lucrative market in aborted fetuses, a brand new way of making money -- become pregnant so that the aborted fetus can be used in this way.

MR. LAZARO: If a cottage industry does develop in human fertility, chances are it won't begin in the United Kingdom. This is the only country so far that's passed a law and actually set up an official governmental body to regulate the science. Lady Diana Brittan is a lay public representative on the 20-member Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority or, HFEA. It oversees the fertility industry in Britain.

LADY DIANA BRITTAN: The process is to regulate but also to make sure that there's good practice and ethical guidelines in this whole very fundamental sensitive and delicate area. It is almost impossible to stop in an unpleasant way, the sinister consequences. But at least you have some chance of controlling it if there is a body such as ours whose task is to look at these big ethical questions side by side with the scientific.

FILM SPOKESPERSON: Every year, several thousand people turn to in vitro fertilization for help in achieving pregnancy.

MR. LAZARO: The HFEA distributes a comprehensive video for couples considering in vitro fertilization. The board licenses fertility clinics and registers all in vitro births. It also tries to ensure ethical standards. Clinics must offer couples counseling, for example. The HFEA also makes sure that a clinic's success rate and charges fall within expected norms and that there isn't a preponderance of older patients. Dr. Winston favors this regulated British approach which is in sharp contrast to fertility clinics in the U.S., which are virtually free of government regulation.

DR. ROBERT WINSTON: There is a lot of evidence in the United States which suggests, for example, that clinics are practicing which have a very low success rate. They're often exploiting patients. There are large sums of money to be made, and we see a lot of American patients that come across the Atlantic regularly for treatment. And I think there are occasions when we feel that the treatment that we have, actually are reviewing, is treatment, but we would be very reticent to approve. But it seems to me that a regulator authority is a very good idea. It doesn't really protect the patient, because it also protects the medical profession.

MR. LAZARO: That kind of regulatory body is highly unlikely in the United States, however. Ethicist Larry Gostin is a visiting professor of law at Georgetown University in Washington.

LARRY GOSTIN, Ethicist: You can't even appoint anybody to a committee, to the Supreme Court. You can't look at whether or not they should run Congress without a sole inquiry about whether they are pro-life or pro-choice.

MR. LAZARO: Gostin says this hang up over the abortion issue is likely to prevent the development of any guidelines or laws to prevent the abuse of technology.

LARRY GOSTIN: I think what any potential for selecting the kind of offspring that one has, either selecting its sex or selecting it for special features, intelligence, race, these things to me have become highly troubling. For example, if a child were born from a dead fetus, I think we would at least have to ask the question seriously whether the child's interests were harmed when the child realized that that was his genetic heritage.

MR. LAZARO: While Gostin worries the U.S. may not be able to control abuses, some in Great Britain have just the opposite concern. Parliamentarian Peter Thurnham said the proposed fetal egg ban could destroy promising research.

PETER THURNHAM, Member of Parliament: Louise Brown was the first test tube baby born in the world because this country has believed it would be very wrong of this House to pass legislation which means that the leads that we have in this field would pass to other countries and in an extreme case, of course, people might have to go abroad to have treatment which they couldn't have in this country.

MR. LAZARO: Some in Britain's medical community note that the idea of a test tube baby, routinely accepted today, was unsavory to many in the general public at first, just as fetal eggs seem today. In other words, time and experience in the case of patients have a habit of diminishing this so-called "yuck" factor.

DR. DAVID BAIRD: But yuck means really basically haven't thought about it. And people do require information and time to work out what their own attitudes are to new issues like this.

MR. LAZARO: Patients of in vitro clinics agree. They, themselves, have become more accepting of new ideas.

LINDA LUKE: I think that that's one thing that doing this treatment makes you. It's nonjudgmental because it used to be that I used to think things were either black or white, but after having gone through all this, it makes you realize that there are gray areas in-between.

MR. LAZARO: For now, however, polls show most Britons, even patients who would benefit, like Deborah Miller, draw the line at the use of fetal eggs.

DEBORAH MILLER: Myself, my own opinions, I don't think I would consider --

MR. LAZARO: And why not?

DEBORAH MILLER: It would be quite difficult. What would you tell the child when they grow up?

MR. LAZARO: Meanwhile, the development from mature eggs from fetuses is at least a decade away from being clinically feasible. That does not necessarily mean clinically useful. Once doctors learn how to mature eggs, Dr. Baird says it will be much simpler to biopsy or remove a section of the ovary from a consenting adult woman. This would yield a more than adequate supply of donatable eggs. Britain's Fertilization and Embryology Authority, meanwhile, is developing guidelines governing the use of fetal eggs to which the Edinburgh doctors say they'll be glad to adhere. CONVERSATION - AMERICA'S VALUES

MS. WARNER: Finally, we return to our conversations about American values. Tonight, Charlayne Hunter-Gault talks to former President Jimmy Carter.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: President Carter, thank you for joining us. Back in 1979, you uttered what you called a truce and sounded a warning at -- it was a crisis of confidence striking at the heart of America. And a lot of people dubbed that the "malaise speech," a lot of criticism, but 15 years later, President Clinton just gave a similar kind of speech in which he talked about a grave crisis of spirit. And so many other people on all sides of the political spectrum are now talking about values. What's happened in that 15 years that everybody is where you were 15 years ago?

JIMMY CARTER: Well, the main point I made back then was that although we did have a crisis of a spirit of values that our nation was strong enough to overcome that crisis and to move on to greater things, if we were able to work together with each other to share responsibilities and not have one element of our society excluded from the basic processes for life. And I think the problem is that since that time, we've had an increased separation in our country for people who are rich and powerful and secure and make the decisions on one side, and our next door neighbors quite often in the inner cities of metropolitan areas and rural communities who make none of the decisions of life for themselves because they don't have the authority. And that division, I think, has caused a further deterioration in the quality of life of many of our neighbors.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Because so many people are talking about the moral rut and a degraded society. You think that's at the core of it, the division between the haves and the have nots?

JIMMY CARTER: Well, I think so. We don't cross the chasm between us. You know, there's no really easy way for -- I'll use a shorthand expression -- rich and poor; we don't have any real easy way for the rich people and the poor people to share things, to talk about common problems, because quite often the problems are not the same. And we don't have any real way for the poorer people of our nation to have a strong voice in shaping their own future which helps to build up their own self-confidence. This creates divisions and conflicts that come out of despair. It comes out of a lack of a purpose in life. It comes out of a feeling of frustration or exclusion. And when people don't have confidence in their own judicial system, their own framework of government, then they're more inclined to resort to violence. And among our poorest people, there is very little belief that the judicial system treats them equally, or that the police are on their side, or that they have what's promised in the Constitution, the right of free thought and the right to enjoy life.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Recently, when President Clinton talked about the crisis in America, he talked about the crisis from with out and the crisis from within. And Sheldon Hackney, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, has proposed a national conversation about, about values and how we address some of these things. What do you think of that in the context of your own prescription?

JIMMY CARTER: Well, you know, as long as people who are different don't talk to each other, each side believes that mine are the true values, and those who disagree with me are wrong, and not only wrong but inferior, and they are not worthy of my attention or my understanding. So just a creation of a sense of self-respect and a sense of shared responsibility and an ease of communication between people who are different, are simple concepts from very difficult to implement. And as you remember vividly in the 50's and 60's, you certainly remember the 60's, differences were based on race, where white people were almost legally assumed to be superior to those who are different from us. That was overcome with the civil rights movement. But now we have a society that is almost equally segregated. You can go to some of the high schools here in Atlanta, where the people are fairly affluent and you'll find 900 students, not a single one of whom is white. Every one, almost every one is African-American, with just a very small number of Spanish-speaking children. So the segregation of our society is a great problem.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How do you think that affects our own sense of ourselves as a nation? Because you mentioned the 60's. My own recollection of the 60's is that there was a time when we had a consensus over some values.

JIMMY CARTER: Of course, we did. But I think that now that has tended to disaffect.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you think that the fact that we're still a segregated society, even though people don't talk about it too much, does that gnaw at the core of what we stand for as a nation?

JIMMY CARTER: It does, but I don't think the segregation now is based on race. I think it's based on social status; it's based on income; it's based on the quality of housing. It's based on the opportunities in life. It's based on the chance of having a job or managing one's own affairs, or having the self-respect of a useful life. That's where the breakdown comes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But you -- in 1979, you spoke of a path to common purpose and a restoration of American values. I mean, how do you -- is there such a thing as American values? And what are they? And how do you get to the common purpose?

JIMMY CARTER: Well, the common purpose can only be forged if the different elements in a given society or community work together and at least communicate and share common goals and accommodate the differences that exist among us. But when you have half of that society in a community or a city or whatever saying we are in charge, we are superior, those who differ from us are inferior, they must be punished if they deviate from our standards of norms, then there's no really corrective action there.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you see any narrowing of the divide?

JIMMY CARTER: Well, the rhetoric is there, but when you look at the actions that are being taken to correct the problems, you don't find very much of a consensus.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you still see a liberal and conservative divide?

JIMMY CARTER: There's a liberal and conservative divide, and I would think that the more conservative elements are tending to prevail.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But when Sheldon Hackney says we want to turn to a sense of our values and our common purpose, or at least have a discussion about that, is he onthe right track?

JIMMY CARTER: I think he's on the right track. I think every one of us wants our children to have enough to eat and a decent place to stay and enough opportunity in life to have a decent education and health care, and we want to live in peace. We don't want to be afraid to go outside of our own homes. We want to have self- respect. We want to have employment for the adults. Those things are common to us all. How do you reach those common goals is a different proposition, and I don't think it can be done unless it's a sharing of opportunity and a sharing of responsibility not only among those who make decisions but of those whose lives are affected by the decisions who often are totally excluded from the process.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is setting a moral tone, such as what the President is doing, some of these other people, is that important?

JIMMY CARTER: Well, it's obvious that you can't stand in the White House or stand in the governor's mansion or stand in a corporate boardroom and tell an unfortunate family, reform yourself, you know, improve your life. That's not going to work, and I don't know the easy answers. You know, I saw the Great Society programs under Lyndon Johnson fail, and the things that I tried to do when I was in the White House did not improve the quality of life for our poorest people. Nothing has worked. That's why we have begun here, the Atlanta Project, where we are experimenting with a number of different approaches, and I think they're going to be successful. But to repeat myself, the major point of it is to let the people who are under difficult circumstances in life make the decisions about their own lives.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is this discussion about values kind of silly? I mean -- or is it something that we need to have, or is it just putting -- as I say -- the emphasis on the wrong syllable?

JIMMY CARTER: Well, the discussion of values quite often is conducted among people who have everything they want in life. They're rich; they're powerful; they're secure; they're employed; they're well educated, have good health care; they make the decisions. And when they see an increase in unemployment, when they see high school dropout rates, or when their own children have access to drug dealers, then they say well, other people have got to reform, and that's not a bad thing to do. But then you got to say: How can we encourage the people who have deprived lives to improve themselves, and what can I do to contribute? That was the key thing that people want in the low income neighborhoods where I go, is just a decent job. You know, most people, the poorest people are the ones that have been on welfare maybe for years. What they want is a decent job so they can have self-respect, use their talent that God gave them, and have a better life for themselves and for their children than they had for themselves. But how do you provide a decent job? I mean, how do you make an environment in a school so that a young person, 13, 14, 15 years old, wants to stay in school and not leave? You know, how do you make sure that a woman can get prenatal care when she becomes pregnant if it doesn't cost anything? Quite often, they don't do so. These are the kinds of problems that we haven't yet addressed, and I don't think the government by itself can do it. But I think government at all levels, plus the corporate world, plus the educational world, with the major emphasis on the people and the communities, themselves, that's a combination that we're trying to prove, and the Atlantic Project can work, and I think that's good -- it's got a good chance of working.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I just want to get one thing in about your book. You address young people and with an effort to have them understand the way the world works, and you've talked about values, as you allude to in the book. Is this where the -- do you believe that this is where the greatest effort needs to be put now? I mean, is it there where your greatest concern lies?

JIMMY CARTER: Well, Talking Peace is a book that is written for young people but it's informative for Americans or foreigners of all ages because it describes the basic causes of conflict, the basis causes of a breakdown in society, and also the proven means by which these breakdowns can be repairs, and the balance can be reduced and understanding can be enhanced, and communication can be established.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And that can be applied in the domestic as well as the foreign.

JIMMY CARTER: It can be applied within a single family between a husband and a wife, or between parents and children. It can be implied within the same school or playground or environment. It can be applied within an inner city or within a small, rural community, or it can be applied in a nation, within a nation that might be at war. So the principles are the same. And I think that not only adults but young people can be, can be very instrumental. When my sons came along -- which may be about the same time as your college years -- you know that the Vietnam War was brought to an end, our environmental laws were publicized with Earth Day, and the civil rights movement was successful, and what, what brought this about? Was it adults in Washington saying we're going to do these things? No. It was young people of high school and college age that said our society is something that we don't like and we demand that there good environmental laws, and we demand that the Vietnam War be ended, and we demand that the civil rights movement be successful. So I think the young people are the key to the progress that we all hope will come in the future.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And the renewal of our values?

JIMMY CARTER: Exactly, renewal of values.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, President Carter, thank you for joining us.

JIMMY CARTER: Thank you, Charlayne. RECAP

MR. MAC NEIL: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, four Muslim fundamentalists were sentenced in New York to 240 years each for bombing the World Trade Center, and the Justice Department announced a $46 million racial discrimination settlement against the Denny's Restaurant chain. Good night, Margaret.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Robin. That's it for the NewsHour tonight. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Margaret Warner. Good night.