Deni Elliott, the former director of the College's Ethics Institute, premiered a video on the moral problems of pre-natal testing for birth defects in Loew Auditorium Tuesday night.
Elliott was one of three directors of the new video called "The Burden of Knowledge."
More than a hundred Upper Valley residents and people involved in the film's production filled the auditorium to see the hour-long video, which was followed by a panel discussion.
"The impact that we hope for this film to make is to help people think about the consequences of the choices they make concerning pre-natal testing," Elliott said.
Co-Director Bob Drake said, "Women aren't prepared to deal with the potential roller coaster that pre-natal testing presents. This film is an attack on the routinization of pre-natal testing."
A panel of two ethical philosophers and a genetic counselor fielded questions posed by the audience for 45 minutes after the video. The discussion encompassed a wide-range of viewpoints.
"On such a complex issue, I find myself agreeing with almost everyone I heard," Andy Pearson '95 said. "It's hard to come to a firm conclusion."
"The Burden of Knowledge" explained the different forms of pre-natal testing, explored the ethical issues surrounding the testing and examined the impact of pre-natal testing on the decision to terminate a pregnancy.
The video was composed largely of interviews with mothers, fathers, doctors, genetic counselors and ethical philosophers who spoke of the controversy of pre-natal testing.
The video also included images of blood-sampling, amniocentesis, disabled children and childbirth.
"When people are introduced to this concept it is never graphically depicted, we tried to bring the reality of the process to the screen," said Wendy Conquest, the third co-director.
The positive aspects of pre-natal testing were also included in the video. Testing offers parents the opportunity to terminate the pregnancy or to prepare for a disabled child, according to the video. Testing can also reassure parents of a normal, healthy child.
Some people interviewed in the video said they felt the screening process created undue anguish for parents who were not helped by data that only rated the probability of pregnancy complications.
Commenting on the ethical issues raised by pre-natal testing, a minister whose son suffers from a genetic spinal abnormality said, "There is Man's place and God's place in the world, and with amniocentesis Man seems to have gained a bit of turf. I don't think this turf should be ours."
Many of the academics interviewed stressed the need for the ethical responsibility of individuals in deciding how to use the information provided by pre-natal testing.
The burden of knowledge, once the knowledge is available, must be distributed, a genetic counselor from Northwestern University said.
The video also depicted the anxiety of parents who underwent amniocentesis, which is a definitive test taken later in the pregnancy to determine whether the fetus has specific disabilities such as Down's Syndrome.
The video interviewed both people who had abortions and those who decided to continue pregnancy despite the knowledge of a mentally or physically defected fetus.
The discussion panel was moderated by Ed Berger, the chair of the biology department. Religion Professor Ronald Green, the current director of the Ethics Institute; Bruce Pact '67, the executive director of United Development Services; and Philosophy Professor Susan Brison sat on the panel.
The discussion section ended with an exchange by Santosh Sangarasivam and Linda Baker, who were both interviewed in the film.
Baker said that she chose to continue her pregnancy with a fetus with Down's Syndrome because her individual "humanism" outweighed her fear of bringing up a disabled child. Selective abortion was an immoral product of materialism, she said.
Close to tears, Sangarasivam said that she chose to terminate her pregnancy because her choice would lessen the amount of pain in the world.
"The discussion moved exactly into the areas we wanted to provoke," Conquest said.
