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William R. Barclay, MD; Richard A. McCormick, SJ; James B. Sidbury, MD; Maria Michejda, MD; Gary D. Hodgen, PhD

JAMA. 1981;246(14):1550-1555.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Barclay: New scientific knowledge and resultant technologies create ethical dilemmas for society. The potential applications of in utero surgery for the repair of fetal defects are enormous and raise interesting ethical questions. The work of Drs Hodgen and Michejda and their associates, such as fetoscopic insertion of a prosthesis to relieve intracranial pressure in the hydrocephalic fetus and closure of neural tube defects, represents important advances and will be the context of our discussion today.

McCormick: As part of any full discussion of an issue like this, something that strikes me is the need to distinguish among technologies. How is in utero surgery similar or dissimilar to end-stage renal disease programs, cardiac bypass surgery, and so on? In many such procedures, we are dealing with people who have lived fairly full lives, and we are not changing life radically, in terms of mentation or freedom. With the technology under discussion, . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
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