Essays

An autumn episode of America's most consis- tently intelligent and fiercely realistic prime- time television series opened with Homer Simpson watching the news. "And, to con- clude this Halloween newscast on a sca-a- ry note," said the anchorman, "remember, the presidential primaries are only a few months away. Heh-heh-heh."
There is no escaping now. Since mid- January, the Washington Post and New York Times have allocated at least one full inside page to the 1992 campaign...

Two years ago, the young son of a British friend of mine asked a question that aston- ished and delighted his mid- die-aged father. "Daddy," the boy inquired, "can a man ever become prime minister in this coun- try?" From the boy's standpoint, it was a perfectly valid inquiry. A child of the 1980s, born after Margaret Thatcher's first elec- tion in 1979, entering nursery school around the time of her second electoral tri- umph in 1983, and old enough to scan the newspapers...

0ver the centuries, medi- cal progress has eased human suffering and prolonged human lives without asking much in return. Vaccinations, antibiotics, and open-heart surgery, to name a few advances, have not generally posed significant moral problems. Today, however, the dawn of an era of gene-based medicine holds out tantalizing promises that carry with them a growing list of new and often disturbing choices for individ- uals, for physicians and researchers, and for society at large.
Some dilemmas...

Howard L. Kaye
Applause and a collective sigh of relief greeted the announcement in 1990 that a portion of the U.S. Human Genome Project's budget would be set aside each year for studies of the social and ethi- cal implications of genetic research. Mind- ful of past experience with the atom and other revolutionary research put to uses that were not fully anticipated, scientists and administrators now seemed prepared to grapple with the possible uses and abuses of their work while it was underway.
Yet...