North American Scene from May 15, 1987

BIOTECHNOLOGY

Patenting Animal Life

The United States has become the first country to allow the patenting of animal life.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced last month that new forms of animal life created through gene splicing could be patented. Gene splicing involves transplanting genes from different species into the embryos of livestock and other animals. The new policy was opposed by 12 animal welfare groups, including the Humane Society of the United States.

Genetically altered forms of animal life are used primarily in agriculture, where gene splicing quickens the development of traits in cows such as the ability to give more milk or in pigs so they will have less fat. Maryland researchers inserted a human growth hormone gene into pig embryos to make pigs grow faster. And at the University of California at Davis, researchers fused a goat embryo with a sheep embryo to produce an animal they call a “geep.”

The new policy bars the patenting of genetic characteristics in humans. But critics have taken issue with the implications of the policy, which one patent office official acknowledged could eventually lead to commercial protection of new human traits.

“One can infer from this decision that the entire creative process in higher forms of life, including human life, is going to be redirected or controlled to satisfy purely human ends,” said Michael Fox, scientific director of the Humane Society of the United States. “We are not only playing God, we are assuming dominion over God.”

SURROGATE MOTHER

Visiting Rights Reinstated

Mary Beth Whitehead last month regained the right to visit “Baby M,” the daughter she bore under a surrogate mother contract. Visitation rights were reinstated by the New Jersey Supreme Court, which in September will hear Whitehead’s appeal of a lower court ruling that awarded custody of the baby to William Stern, the biological father.

Stern and his wife, Elizabeth, had waged a year-long battle over the surrogate contract they signed with White-head. She had agreed to be artificially inseminated by Stern and to bear the child in exchange for $10,000 (CT, Mar. 6, 1987, p. 42). After she delivered the baby, named Melissa by the Sterns, Whitehead decided she could not part with the child.

New Jersey Superior Court Judge Harvey Sorkow in March upheld the surrogate mother contract. In the ruling, he recommended that legislation be passed “to give our society a sense of definition and direction if the concept is to be allowed to further develop.” His decision was based primarily on the interests of Baby M.

“Melissa needs an end to litigation, she needs to have her parentage fixed, she needs protection from anyone who would threaten her …,” Sorkow wrote. The judge agreed with testimony from witnesses who deemed Whitehead an inadequate parent.

OBITUARY

Carl Armerding Is Dead At 97

Carl Armerding, professor emeritus of Bible and theology at Wheaton (Ill.) College, died March 28 in Hayward, California, at the age of 97.

Armerding was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the first of ten children of a German immigrant couple. He became a Christian at the age of 15 under the preaching of George MacKenzie, an evangelist and Bible teacher with the Plymouth Brethren.

Armerding served as a Plymouth Brethren missionary in British Honduras (Belize), the Bahamas, the United States, and Canada. He later taught at Dallas Theological Seminary and on the extension staff of Moody Bible Institute. He came to Wheaton College in 1948 as assistant to the president, retiring in 1962. His son, Hudson Armerding, served as president of Wheaton College from 1965 to 1982.

BROADCASTING

Redefining Indecency

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last month expanded the definition of indecency in programs broadcast over the public airwaves. The decision came in response to mounting citizen complaints about offensive broadcasts.

The FCC said it would no longer limit its interpretation of indecency to the earlier definition, which specifically barred the use of seven words. The agency said it will now regard as indecent “language or material that depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory activities or organs.” Said FCC chairman Dennis Patrick: “What we are doing is correcting an altogether too narrow interpretation of indecency.”

The FCC sent warning letters to three radio stations, after receiving citizen complaints. It was the first enforcement action taken by the agency against indecent programming since 1976.

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

Briefly Noted

Died: Baroness Maria Augusta von Trapp, 82, the former Austrian governess whose life story formed the basis of the musical The Sound of Music; of heart failure, in Morrisville, Vermont, on March 28. She married Baron Georg von Trapp in 1927, and in 1942 they moved to Vermont with his seven children. Mrs. von Trapp was active in Catholic mission work after her husband died in 1947.

Tabled: A plan to charge sales taxes on certain services provided by churches and other nonprofit groups in Florida (CT, April 3, 1987, p. 42). The proposal, which was scheduled to take effect in July, would have dropped churches and other nonprofit groups from a list of organizations exempt from charging sales taxes.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.