Unasked Questions

Prof Note

It was more than a year ago when Abe and Mary Ayala held a press conference announcing the good news: the baby they would soon have would be able to provide healthy bone marrow for their terminally ill teenager. The media, en masse, condemned the couple's designated conception. That same media focus returned earlier this month as the 14-month-old Ayala baby donated bone marrow to her older sister.

In both cases, says Deni Elliott, director of Dartmouth's Ethics Institute, the stories badly missed the point.

Currently producing a video documentary on the issue, Elliott points out that the Ayalas had not conceived the baby as a donor; the time for abortion had long past when the baby was found compatible. The real moral question, says Elliott, is this: "How can we, as a society, build a treatment system on the desperation of individuals in need?"