Senator BAYH. Thank you, Dr. Biggers, Dr. Zinder and Dr. Edelman. Your individual testimonies accurately describe the difficulty of the layman coming to grips with some of the very specific problems here. Let me, if I might, just go back over the testimony that you each raised individually, and direct a question or two.

Dr. Edelman, in your testimony you suggested it is really not right or it is extremely difficult to distinguish the self from the nonself, or something in those terms. I do not want to spoil your scientific words by my interpretation. Then you went on, in your discussion of the frog development, to suggest that cells are not life.

How do we describe life?

I am not familiar with the way a frog's cell is implanted in the egg and thus becomes a full frog. But in the development of the human being, we do know that there are times when cells develop and you can sense a heartbeat. Previous witnesses have suggested there is evidence that a fetus at certain stages can detect pain, sour, and sweetness, and thus the rate of ingestion of fluid is changed, chromosomes are developed, and all of this kind of business.

Is not that distinct from a given cell, when you have groups of cells that begin to assume portions of human life?

Dr. EDELMAN. Yes, sir. Perhaps I can go back to your earlier statement. Perhaps I did not make myself clear. I think we-and I mean immunologists, my everyday profession-we can indeed tell quite clearly self from nonself. That is to say, every vertebrate, including the human being, has systems of immunity which can tell foreign cells from their own cells and can recognize them.

I do not think, however, that is at issue. Indeed, I was astonished at the statement made in earlier testimony that the fetus has solved the homograft problem-namely, how one tells the difference between the mother and the fetus, or one individual and another. In my view, the fetus has solved no problem at all. It is not a problem. It is an adaptation provided by evolution. It is certainly true that one must admit that grown immunologists have not solved the homograft problems for transplanted hearts and skins. And so, I do not think it is an accurate description of the situation to say that because the trophoblast has properties which do not permit an immunological reaction, the fetus has been responsible for the solution of a problem raised, after all, by the mind of man.

But to get more particular in relation to your question, I think that what we were all trying to convey was the notion of continuity of processes, that indeed one does start with the information of the gene and the DNA and the collection of genes known as chromosomes, and that the expression of these genes takes place in a temporal course. Indeed, given that fact, given the fact that for example a virus is a kind of gene existing outside of the cell, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to decide on a priori grounds, just dogmatically, whether that virus is alive or not.

Certainly, I think most molecular bliologists would include in the requirements for life the ability to self-replicate, that is, to reproduce and to evolve. A virus can do that, and yet a virus can be treated by molecular biologists just as some piece of inanimate matter. Every atom of a virus can be described in its position in space. That com

pletely characterizes it chemically, and its functions depend upon the positions of those atoms.

Now indeed, what makes the issue so difficult is the fact that these cells and molecules of which the cells are comprised are an enormous collection. I should, I think, give you a feeling for how many cells there are. In your brain alone there are ten billion of those cells, and in your immune system there may be as many as 100 billion of those cells.

Senator BAYH. Do I have more now than I did when I was 8 months through the gestation period?

Dr. EDELMAN. Sir, you do, except it may come as some disappointment to all of us beyond the age of 40 that in the case of the brain cells you can say you have less. Every day they disappear.

Senator BAYH. How many less for each year over 40?

Dr. EDELMAN. That is a problem, sir, with which I have been wrestling.

In any case, the point of my remarks is this, that it is not just the numerology, but the very complex hierarchy of interactions that comprise a system that makes the problem so difficult to define in a very dogmatic manner. That is to say, for example, the analogies to a tape machine that were made in earlier testimony strike me as inapropos because a tape machine does not, while it is playing the tape equivalent to DNA, replicate itself during the process and accumulate mutations which are changes in the information on the tape in a way that might be used later on. And indeed, a machine of this kind does not transform and grow. Yet, of course, individuals comprised of cells finally form great hierarchies of system out of which properties emerge, the most mysterious of which I think is consciousness. For that reason, any arbitrary dissection or reduction in terms of simple work machines is an inapropos statement of our problem. The problem can neither be reduced to the potential information in the gene nor can it be elevated to some kind of ghost. The fact is that it arises out of a temporal process which is constantly changing and is enormously difficult to analyze.

Now, by saying this I do not mean to obscure the issue. I mean to say that in agreement with Dr. Biggers, that any arbitrary definitions are simply arbitrary, and any tautologous statements are only repetitions of what you already knew in the first place.

Senator BAYн. I do not want to be picky here, but I am trying to understand. On both sides of this issue there are people so much better educated in the scientific details than I.

In talking about the numbers of cells, give me a good round count of what we have currently at the ultimate age of 40?

Back in the good old days, how many cells did I have?

Dr. EDEIMAN. Perhaps I could say that in terms of the 10 billion cells of the brain, you might be losing as many as 100,000 by just death, since the cells in the brain do not divide. There is evidence that every day you might lose as many as 100,000.

Senator BAYH. Every day, even if I lead a good clean life?
It does not make any difference?

Now, 10 billion in the brain.

Now, what is that at age 20?

Dr. EDELMAN. Of course, Senator, 10 billion is a very large number and 100,000 is a very small percentage of that number, so it would not be very much more than 10 billion when you get to numbers of that size. What I am saying is that in the adult brain you have 10 billion cells. In the adult immune system, for example, which is the system that recognizes self from nonself, you have perhaps as many as 100 billion cells. Now, your total body, therefore, consists of billions of cells, all of which contain the original genetic information from your father and your mother, with the exception that some of those cells have accumulated either changes in the form of mutations or recombinations of the information.

The basic set of genes is in every one of those.

Senator BAYH. Well, I guess I am anxious to find out from our standpoint I know this is simplistic, but how many cells does a 1-day-old baby have, compared to whatever stage of life he or she reaches to have the ultimate number of cells?

Dr. EDELMAN. Well, I would have to make that calculation. Certainly, a new-born baby has less than a fully developed child. But the numbers are not greatly different in a new-born baby and a fully developed human.

What is different, however are the interactions amongst those cells, the way in which after interacting with the world they interact with each other, and form a kind of sociology, if you will.

Senator BAYH. I envy you your capacity to wrestle with this in those terms. But if you are to acquire the rightness or the wrongness of our dealing with this issue and the number of cells

Dr. EDELMAN. No, I am not doing that, Senator. Excuse me. What I meant to

Senator BAYH. It seemed to me that the argument was based on the fact that

Dr. EDELMAN. No, I am not. That is not what I am saying, Senator. What I am saying is, in fact, this: that in the face of the fact that some of the traits of these cells are determined genetically and others of the traits of the cells-that is, their hierarchial interactions with each other to form organs, such as the brain, or the liver, or the lungs, or the heart, and finally the whole body-that since those interactions develop after the individual is exposed to the environment, there is no arbitrary way in which one can define an individual, it seems to me, by scientific grounds alone.

Now, I can tell you by immunological criteria how one individual differs from another in certain protein molecules of those cells. I cannot tell you how that individual differs from another in his total processes, because it seems to me that once brain functions enter into the matter, and interaction with the world at large, the issue becomes one that cannot be determined by scientific experiment. That is the point.

Senator BAYH. All right, let me ask you gentlemen a question.

Is there a time, prior to birth, after 9 months normal gestation period that society should impose on the mother a higher degree of responsibility than the earlier stages of gestation?

After you get past the point of viability outside the mother's womb, are you more concerned about the responsibility the mother and society might have for that child than prior to that moment?

Could all of you give me your thoughts on that, because that is a matter that I think we have to consider?

I would like to have all of you speak to that?

Dr. EDELMAN. It seems to me that in fact if one can define viability at a certain time, then given that fact that the situation is changed in the legal sense. It seems to me that the notion of responsibility certainly would be changed by a definition of viability. This seems to be one of those famous grey areas mentioned earlier. But in fact there are lower limits to that term of viability. I am not an expert in the field, but it seems to me that there is a time below which it seems that a fetus cannot survive outside the mother, although there certainly is a statistical variation from individual to individual. Therefore if once that term of viability is legally defined, then of course it seems to me increased responsibility is laid upon the mother, and any acts that ensue. But it also seems to me

Senator BAYH. How about abortion?

Dr. EDELMAN. Yes, but it also seems to me, Senator, that the issue is an issue of the rights of an individual before the law. If, for example, the adjectives applied to a fetus, depend on the issue of viability this might be settled by the medical definition of the lower limits according to what happens in medical practice.

If one uses adjectives of the type that were used today-for example, comfort, problem-solving, the foresight of a fetus, or the assumption that a fetus knows that Saccharin is sweet, or that you know that the fetus knows-the problem is not advanced. If legally one can provide a definition of the individual and his rights-for example, as a claimant under the law or a plaintiff-then it seems to me it would follow that the mother has to share in those responsibilities.

Senator BAYH. Dr. Zinder, what are your thoughts on that particular question?

Dr. ZINDER. I am not really sure I understand the question, Senator Bayh.

Senator BAYH. Well, it seemed to me that there was a rather consistent feeling that the three of you are all opposed to those of us who are charged with establishing rules for society stepping in and saying that the yet unborn child should be protected against abortion from the moment of fertilization.

And I just wondered, is there a time after fertilization, prior to actual live birth, that because of the characteristics that the fetus assumes, that you might be more concerned about that?

Dr. ZINDER. Well, first let me say, I do not think there are just two positions on this issue, proabortion or antiabortion. I think one can be anti-antiabortion, rather than proabortion in a real sense.

I certainly feel that after the time that the baby is viable the mother has responsibilities. This is decided by society, by our culture, by our history, by our traditions.

Does this satisfy you?

Senator BAYH. Well, I think more so than the anti-antiabortion. Dr. Biggers, where do you come down on that particular issue, and I do appreciate your biological lesson here. It is helpful to me, if academic to you.

Dr. BIGGERS. The first point I want to make clear is, that I feel very strongly that pregnancy is a relationship between the fetus and the mother, and we should not regard them as independent. I think the mother is entitled to choose abortion for various reasons in consultation with her physician. I think that when we come to considering late we get into an extremely difficult situation involving problems of viability.

I am not sure what to recommend. The problem is again a matter of technology—when determining scientists or medical people can do something that is really beneficial for a fetus once it has been removed from a mother's body?

We hear talk how in the State of Massachusetts, for example, of making it mandatory to save a fetus after a particular age. There is a bill before the legislature there making it mandatory that after the 20th week a physician who does an abortion must do everything he can to preserve the life of the fetus.

All medical knowledge that I am aware of shows that as you get further and further back from the expected time of birth, there is an ever-increasing incidence of abnormalities, and the obstetricians and gynecologists that I have talked to in Boston last week when I was preparing my testimony all seem to feel that you cannot do a great deal that is going to be really useful before about, say the 27th or 28th week. As soon as you start going back before that, sure, you may be able to keep the fetus alive for 2 weeks, for 4 weeks, and so on. But the certainty of it having abnormal development goes up very rapidly.

So I feel very concerned and disturbed about insisting on a law that sets a date when there must be every effort made. In fact, the physician could be charged for criminal negligence if he did not make this effort, when he knows that the likelihood is 99 percent chance that that baby is going to be abnormal and wind up in an institution. So the problem, when you ask for a definite date is that there is a grey area here. And we know, because of biological variation between individuals, that technically you might be able to preserve the life of a fetus, but the likelihood of it not developing properly is high.

In terms of the relationship between the mother and the physician on an abortion, I think it is difficult if it is a normal baby in the area of 27 or 28 weeks, to agree for abortion to be done just because the woman at that stage decides she does not want to have the baby. If she does not want to have the baby, say at the first month, because she feels she cannot afford to raise it, then that is the time for her to make a decision. I would not legalize against it at that stage. But I believe there is a problem in this whole business later on, where you may in fact preserve the life of a fetus, but with nearly 100 percent certainty of raising an abnormal individual. And this is the difficulty of writing very strict legal regulations.

Senator BAYH. Dr. Biggers, you mentioned what significant details describe the biological process there.

Could you give us just sort of a general idea for the record, of the number of fertilized eggs that do not successfully make it through the stages of implantation?