Forum Discusses Medical Morals

A doctor and a Yale law professor said last night that society has not yet found means of deciding who will be donor and who recipient for heart transplants. Speaking to a Harvard Law School Forum in the Ames Courtroom, Dr. Michael DeBakey and Guido Calabresi stressed the moral and social problems of heart transplants.

Calabresi said that the objective standards used to determine who will live and who die are fallacious. The most common standards involve "usefulness" and cost.

People cannot decide which patients are most socially "useful" and committees tend to pick the patient who can best afford the cost of surgery, he said. "An auction destroys the idea of life as a priceless pearl," said Calabresi.

Calabresi said it is debatable whetherdoctors and scientists should work so much on costly operations when there are other such pressing problems as overflowing mental hospitals, an increase in poverty, and the population boom.

Population Control?

Calabresi agreed with DeBakey that to avoid life-saving because of increasing population is fallacious. He said, "Not saving people who could die is a hell of a way of population control."

Both men looked forward to less costly, more successful and universal heart transplants but stressed the need for consideration of human values to keep pace with technology. DeBakey said, "We must keep in mind that as we move forward in our development, compassing constitutes a very important factor."