The Michigan Daily-Thursday, July 27, 1978-Page 13
U.S. may end Rhodesia sanction
WASHINGTON (AP)-The Senate
yesterday approved a proposal that
would allow lifting of economic san-
ctions against Rhodesia if there was
clear progress toward majority rule in
the African nation.
Under the measure, which will go to
th House as part of a $2.8 billion foreign
military aid bill, the sanctions would be
ended if Rhodesian leaders held free
elections and moved to achieve a set-
tlement embracing all parties, in-
cluding anti-government guerrillas.
THE KEY VOTE was 59-36, on a
compromise offered by three senators
'Test tube'
birth
raises
issues
NEW YORK (AP)-A federal ethics
advisory board will begin gathering in-
formation next month on complicated
"test-tube baby" issues that include the
discarding of fertilized eggs, donor
eggs and even the question of using
another woman's womb to carry a
baby.
"I feel fairly clear there will be a
marked increase in requests for this
procedure from couples whose
marriage is sterile," the Rev. Richard
McCormick said yesterday. "There
should also be a marked increased in
requests for federal funds for resear-
ch."
McCORMICK, A professor of
biological ethics at Georgetown
University in Washington, is a member
of the new federal Ethics Advisory
Board, which will meet formally in Sep-
tember.
"This is the'first project we're going
to undertake," he said. "The staff will
begin to gather background infor-
mation in August."
One of the many thorny questions
-that will be examined, McCormick
said, is that of discards, embryos grown
in the test tube but not implanted.
"WOULD THIS amount to abor-
tion-or to murder? We have no law to
cope with this kind of situation," one
scientist has written.
"Who decides what are the grounds
for discard?" said another bioethics
specialist who did not want to be quoted
by name. "What if there is another
recipient availble who wished to have
the otherwise unwanted embryo?
Whose embryos are they? The woman's
The couple's? The geneticist's; The ob-
stetrician's?"
"Another question," said McCor-
mick, "is where do you stop? If there is
no serious moral objection to donor
eggs, then do you take the next exotic
step and use a host womb?" The
bioethics pecialist called this "womb
rental."
WITH ALL THE questions, it is not
clear when test-tube births might take
place in the United States, where
perhaps 10 percent of married women
who want to become pregnant are
unable to.
Test-tube baby research has been
curtailed in this country since 1975
when federal funding was barred unless
the projects are approved by the Ethics
Advisory Board.-
to block a move by Sen. Jesse Helms
(R-N.C.) to suspend U.S. participation
in the United Nations sanctions against
Rhodesia for the rest of this year.
Helms said his proposal would help
the Salisbury government's interim
ruling council establish a viable
economy and thereby encourage a
political settlement.
Fearing that Helms' plan-similar to
one narrowly defeated last mon-
th--might succeed, the White House
reluctantly and privately endorsed the
compromise.
SEN. CLIFFORD CASE (R-N.J.),
principal author of the compromise,
said he thought it "reflected that which
most Americans think should happen in
Rhodesia ... as close as you could come
to defining the right U.S.
position-morally, politically and
diplomatically."
Helms kept the floor for further
debate on his own plan, but abruptly
withdrew it after the Senate rejected
yet another proposal to suspend the
sanctions from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31.
That amendment, by Sen. Jack Dan-
forth (R-Mo.) was defeated 54-42. The
Senate then voted 89-7 to accept the
overall amendment to which the White
House-endorsed alternative was at-
tached.
THE STATE DEPARTMENT said it
was encouraged by Senate rejection of
the "extreme approach" advocated by
helms.
Approval of the Helms amendment
would have required the United States
to violate its international obligations
and would have "seriously weakened
out position of impartiality among the
factions involved in Rhodesia," the
statement said.
It added that the thrust of the amen-
dment offered by Case and Sens. Jacob
Javits (R-N.Y.) and Daniel Moynihan
(D-N.Y.) "is consistent with the goals of
our Rhodesia policy."
THESE GOALS, it said, are to bring
about a meeting of all parties to the
dispute and to help the Rhodesian
people have the opportunity to elect
their own leaders in fair and free elec-
tions under impartial supervision.
Helms' plan was sharply attacked by
Sen. Dick Clark (D-Iowa), chairman of
the Senate's African affairs subcom-
mittee, who said it could jeopardize
U.S. relations with Africa and the third
world.
Case told the Senate that although a
transition government now exists in
Rhodesia, doubt remains about its
movement toward majority black rule.
"SUCH A MOVE could jeopardize our
relations with Africa and would
represent a great setback to U.S.
relations in the Third World," Clark
said.
The Carter administration supports a
Rhodesian settlement that would in-
clude representatives of all parties,
among them the Patriotic Front whose
guerrilla forces have been warring on
the white minority-run regime.
Opponents of this policy argued in
Senate debate that it would reward
aggression.
In earlier actions on the bill, the
Senate approved some $110 million in
security aid to African nations and ac-
cepted a provision that $20 million of it
be earmakred to assist Rhodesian
refugees.
La Casa de Aliaga, in Lima, Peru, is
the oldest private household in con-
tinuous occupation in the Western
Hemisphere. It was built in 1535 on top
of the ruins of the temple of the Inca
chieftain Tauli Chusco.
Home