Word: theodosius
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...noblest impulses are apt to offend against nature. While improved medical care assures the survival and reproduction of those with genetically caused mental and physical defects, it also ensures that an increasingly larger percentage of the population will be heir to these illnesses in years to come. Geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky succinctly expresses the ethical dilemma. "If we enable the weak and the deformed to live and to propagate their kind," he says, "we face the prospect of a genetic twilight. But if we let them die or suffer when we can save or help them, we face the certainty...
...consider such issues, Roman Catholic Lay Theologian Daniel Callahan and a number of like-minded ethicists and scientists have set up the Institute of Society, Ethics and the Life Sciences. Among the 70 members are Geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, Psychiatrist Willard Gaylin, Theologian John C. Bennett, and U.S. Senator Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota, who three years ago introduced a bill to establish an interdisciplinary committee to examine new scientific problems. It did not pass, but Mondale is trying again this year. "There may still be time," he says, "to establish some ground rules...