a "necessary evil." It must be sold on necessity because it will never be sold on the fact that it is not evil. It will never be morally justifiable. We cannot for a moment lose sight of the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade stated that its judgment was consistent with an attempt to "solve the profound problems of the present day." We likewise cannot ignore the concurring opinion of Justice Douglas when he stated that this "is only the beginning. The State has interest to protect." If it is acceptable to the American people that our system will legalize a selective, technologically efficient elimination of a segment of our society in an attempt to solve any of our social ills, such action would be so violative of our ideals of jurisprudence that the ultimate effect would be to destroy our society. For this reason, the National Right to Life Committee most strongly urges that this committee adopt and endorse a constitutional amendment, and that that constitutional provision would secure the following rights:

First, define the word "person" as used in the 5th and 14th amendments as applicable to all human beings, including their unborn offspring at every stage of their biological development irrespective of age, health, function, or condition of dependency.

Second, clarify that the definition of the word "person" as used in the 5th and 14th amendments and defined in section 1 above, with respect to due process and equal protection of the law, would thus prohibit official Federal and State action designed to deprive the unborn child of its life.

Third, to provide legal and constitutional rigidity to assure that the life of the unborn child is protected in every reasonable effort made to preserve the life of that child in light of all of the rapid medical advances in the care of the unborn as well as providing the constitutional protection to prevent the death of the mother.

It is within these principles that we support all legislation which demonstrates that its intent and purpose is to secure these ultimate goals. We encourage Congress, the State legislatures and all political, moral, and religious leaders in this country to unite personally and within their representative institutions to assure the attainment of these goals.

I would like to conclude my presentation on a personal note. To the members of this committee and your colleagues in the U.S. Senate we must realize that this is a very basic and personal responsibility that you are accountable for as you deliberated on the human life amendment. I have been subjected to questions and perhaps criticism as all of you have when addressing myself to the question. of abortion. I speak to you now as a father of four children. While I do not deny in any way or take exception to the fact that the question of abortion intimately affects the life of the woman, you and I must not become desensitized or intimidated by the fact that we are men. We have a vital and God-given responsibility for the care of all people in this Nation and in this world. The unborn child is not a part of the mother's body but actually a new, distinct person carrying with it a very intimate part of the father's very being. My responsibility and concern flows from the fact that the unborn child from its very first inception requires that I as a parent and fellow

human being become highly visible and articulate in its defense. Its mother would be wanting, not to aid in its defense, but certainly no less than its father of the men of this country who would be accused of refusing to accept their responsibility to protect the life of the unborn. There is not a person in this country who can escape his own personal responsibility in this issue by indicating that it is the responsibility of one sex or the other and that therefore I am not involved. The real issue that faces you today is the protection of all life. To be consistent and intellectually honest, we cannot address this issue on any basis other than that we are all human beings, responsible and accountable to see that every other human being is protected by the Constitution of the United States.

Thank you, and may God bless you in your deliberations.

I would like if I might at this time, Senator, to introduce Dr. Mildred Jefferson.

Senatar BAYH. Fine.

Mr. VANDERHOEF. Dr. Jefferson is a general surgeon in Boston, Mass., and assistant clinical professor of surgery at Boston University School of Medicine.

Dr. Jefferson is chairman of the board of directors of the National Right to Life Committee. She also is vice president and a member of the board of the Massachusetts Citizens for Life, president of the Value of Life Committee of Massachusetts, and a member of the board of directors of Americans United for Life.

Dr. Jefferson graduated summa cum laude from Texas College in Tyler, Tex., received her M.S. degree from Tufts University, Medford, Mass., and her M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School. Dr. Jefferson holds an honorary L.D. degree from Regis College in western Massachusetts. Dr. Jefferson received her surgical training at Boston City Hospital at Boston University Medical Center, Childrens Hospital Medical Center, and Massachusetts General Hospital. She is a diplomat of the American Board of Surgeons and a member of the local, State, and national medical societies.

It is with great pleasure I would introduce Dr. Mildred Jefferson, chairman of the board of the National Right to Life Committee. Senator BAYH. Dr. Jefferson, we are privileged to have you here.

STATEMENT OF DR. MILDRED JEFFERSON, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, THE NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE COMMITTEE, INC.

Dr. JEFFERSON. Delighted to be here, and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity of appearing before this committee to speak in support of the Human Life Amendment to the Constitution.

Because of my feeling that the physician has obligations of citizenship beyond providing for the health care needs, I also participate as a member of the U.S. National Commission on the Observance of World Population Year, 1974.

Although it is a privilege for me to be here, I am somewhat saddened that we must take the strong measures that we must to prevent the destruction of lives of those who cannot defend themselves. Most immediately, there are those unborn who would be considered social

embarrassment or economic burdens. The jeopardy already extends to the newly born with severe mental or physical defects. The elderly are being invited to die with dignity, and those who accept the invitation may soon find themselves invited or perhaps urged to choose to die. If a society can develop tolerance for destroying lives at the beginning and the end, why not apply the methods to eliminate the deformed, defective, incapable, the incompetent, or the inconvenient anywhere along the scale? If the destruction of life is permissible for social and economic reasons, why not for political reasons?

It is reasonable to apply the extermination principle of social change to that segment of the population that cannot fight back, cannot riot in the streets and of course, cannot vote. Getting rid of babies before they can be born in their own time can be arranged so very readily with our modern medical technology. Separating the word "abortion" from the fact of what abortion does allow it to be promoted as a welcome escape from a probles without considering the threat of harm in the promise of the relief.

The acting of killing an unborn child involves complex medical, moral, and legal issues. On January 22, 1973, the majority of the Supreme Court of the United States undertook to reduce them to a simple medical problem by handing down decisions on abortion which left the abortion decision to be a private matter between a woman and a doctor, subject to the doctor's medical judgment. The Court acted in the tradition of the 19th century Court that decided to settle the problem of slavery by declaring one ensloved Dred Scott to be "property" therefore not a person and not entitled to the protection of citizenship. The 20th century Court may have intended to create social revolution with its abortion rulings. If so, the Court succeeded in turning the whoel of social progress a full turn backward.

By joining the strong team of the woman and the doctor against the unborn child, the High Court destroyed a principle of justice in our legal system which guaranteed some balance for the weak in conflict with the strong by joining with the weak against the strong. By requiring the unborn child to escape an extermination team of the mother and doctor for 6 months before having chance of protection by the State, the High Court destroyed fairness in the application of our laws. By allowing the State to protect the life that Mr. Justice Blackmun called potential in the last 3 months before birth only if it chooses, means that the Court did not guarantee protection for the life of that child at any point before birth or after if the State should choose not to protect that life. And that opens the jeopardy to us all.

The Supreme Court destroyed the foundations of democracy in the abortion decisions by creating three categories of citizenship. The doctor and pregnant woman were elevated to the rank of supercitizens with the private right to kill by contract. Man, the father of the child, was reduced to the level of subcitizen with no defined right to protect the life of his unborn child. The unborn child was declared nonperson in the eyes of the law, and therefore, noncitizen only to allow his or her life to be taken.

The highest Court of our land undermined respect for the medical profession by granting the doctor a nearly unlimited license to kill

the unborn child. The majority opinion of the Court disparaged the hippocratic oath as a guiding principle of medical conduct. Seven justices of the Court undertook to practice medicine without a license by dictating what should comprise medical judgment in the abortion decision. Without indicating when life began, the Court established a timetable for allowing willful end of that life. Most cruelly, the Court introduced the concept of viability, "potentially able to survive outside the mother's womb" as a price to pay for continued life. It places the immature, premature survivor of abortion in the circumstance of having to prove the ability to live before being given. the support system that would help sustain its life. As a physician I cannot accept that because it is not a sound or reasonable test. It also disturbs me that those physicians who have been paid to see that the mother leaves the facility with empty arms have been the ones to try to establish the criteria for viability.

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court's decisions on abortion we have seen increased efforts to popularize or make acceptable the extermination procedures of the radical social medicine. The talkmaster on a late night Boston radio program feels obliged to offer abortion counseling to a 14-year-old caller who thinks she is pregnant and has not told her parents. Specialists at a famous teaching center feel obliged to report in The New England Journal of Medicine allowing 43 infants with severe deformities to die. Legislators in the States of Florida and Massachusetts, among others, introduced passive euthanasia bills which would give the permission which doctors do not really need to withhold extraordinary means of prolonging life when death appears inevitable.

Senator BAYH. Pardon me, Doctor, by what definition is that kind of statute described as a euthanasia statute?

Dr. JEFFERSON. It is a passive euthanasia statute in the sense that it executes an instrument which allows or directs that extraordinary means be withheld. No doctor using sound medical judgment needs such direction, but with the instrument executed, there is also the provision of what happens when the person is no longer competent to act? It is very simple then to use this to ease the person along, so it becomes very simple to convert it from a passive euthanasia bill to an active one.

Senator BAYH. We are playing with words, and I do not want to get into a prolonged argument on this. I think the question of abortion is a very critical matter and I think it is complicated significantly when we try to conjure up something entirely different such as euthanasia. If there had been a euthanasia statute passed or even proceeded significantly through a legislative body, I would like to know about it. But a statute described as a passive euthanasia statute is not the same thing as euthanasia by any means. I think that sort of gets us off on the wrong road, does it not? We have got enough problem here confining it to where we are.

Dr. JEFFERSON. I am stating the things that have taken place. If one reads the letter from the doctor who was a legislator in Florida who introduced the bill, who mentioned the 5 years in the building for the bill he did introduce, and why he felt that the climate was then suitable for introducing that legislation. That was written in a letter

Senator BAYH. Maybe I misunderstood you. I thought you said it had passed.

Dr. JEFFERSON. No, no; introduced. The one in Florida was introduced first. The one in Massachusetts was introduced in this session of the legislature.

Senator BAYH. Is the one in Florida similar to the Florida statute when it was passed?

Dr. JEFFERSON. It was entirely different when passed out of committee, but there were no changes in the ones that-the one in Massachusetts was introduced which essentially followed the form of the living will.

Senator BAYH. In other words, if a person like the former Senator Morse, wants to turn off the kidney machine, he has a right to say turn off the kidney machine.

Dr. JEFFERSON. He has a right to direct, but the doctor does not need that in terms of the law or an instrument to be executed. If the physician is following the case carefully, the sound medical judgment should let him know when it is not reasonable to use the extraordinary means.

Senator BAYH. Well, suppose the patient disagrees with the doctors and says look, I'm tired of you poking me with that needle. Would you just stop it. Then do you as a physician, think a patient has a right to ask the doctor to do that or not?

Dr. JEFFERSON. The patient has every right to ask, but the doctor must act within that doctor's sound medical judgment, and that doctor still

Senator BAYH. Was that answer yes or no?

Dr. JEFFERSON. I cannot answer that yes or no because the doctor still has to act within the provisions that control his action in the hospital.

Senator BAYH. Let us take the kidney problem as specifically, painfully and unfortunately faced by our former colleague Wayne Morse.

Dr. JEFFERSON. Yes.

Senator BAYH. Wayne Morse happened to be somebody everybody knows. Suppose Jack Jones out here that nobody ever heard of comes to you and says, "Look, I do not want to take that treatment anymore, Doctor."

Dr. JEFFERSON. I would have to turn Jack Jones over to a doctor who would allow a patient to dictate his treatment. You see, I come from a rather different medical background. I was part of the first team to work on the kidney transplantation so that I look upon kidney failure in a different way. I also handle the relationship of a patient in a different way. I have never had a patient ask to refuse treatment that was considered necessary within my medical judgment, so that if I felt, understanding and meeting the patient's sense, that he wanted to direct his treatment, I would feel obliged to find that patient another doctor.

Senator BAYH. Then the answer you would give to my question is "no," you would not continue to serve as a physician to someone who wants to stop receiving certain treatment and let nature take its

course.