December Y, 1972

Ur. Larry Horowitz

c/o Senator bavary Kennedy)
United States Sena
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Dr. Horowitz,

I was glad to have a chance to chat with you, even briefly,
yesterday. I had started to tell you that I thought that to a large
extent there was nothing especially different about the ethical
constraints under which genetic therapies must operate as compared
to the rest of medicine. But I never got to finish that paragraph
namely that there is, of course, another side to it, namely the
rights of the fetus. The issues of assuring the health and vigor
of the fetus -- for example whether parents have the right or the
obligation to intervene as trustees in the light of their perception
of the eventual child's interest -- are by no means the same as those
involved in abortion but to a considerable extent they are encompassed
by the latter. If you get into the ethics of genetic medicine I do
not see how you can avoid the abortion problem. Ideally this should
be regarded as just one more chapter in the book but I am rather afraid
that the heat of public controversy about this question may make it more
difficult to look at the other problems that emerge more immediately
from concerns about the rights of subjects.

Sincerely yours, ,

Bashua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

JL/rr