Baby Jones

O.K. for U.S. test-tube clinic

Ever since the birth of Britain's Louise Brown, the world's first test-tube baby, in July 1978, infertile American couples have been clamoring for similar medical miracles on their side of the Atlantic. Now the pleas may be answered. Last week, after a year of acrimonious debate, Virginia became the first state to approve establishment of a center for in vitro fertilization.

The clinic, at Norfolk General Hospital, will be directed by Drs. Howard Jones Jr. and Georgeanna Seegar Jones, a well-known husband-and-wife obstetrical and gynecological team, as part of the fertility program at Eastern Virginia Medical School. They will use a variation of the technique developed by British Scientists Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards. An egg will be removed, through a small incision in the abdomen, from the ovary of a woman whose fallopian tubes are either hopelessly blocked or too damaged to permit natural fertilization. Then it will be placed in a laboratory dish with the husband's sperm. (Unmarried women are not eligible.) About two days later, the fertilized egg will be inserted into the wife's womb.

Eleven women have already been selected out of 2,500 applicants and begun preliminary tests; 30 more are in the next group waiting for treatment (estimated cost: $3,000 to $4,000). Exulted Jill Schroeder, 31, a Norfolk bookkeeper: "This is an answer to our prayers." Sarah Smith, 33, of Virginia Beach, wept with joy. Said her husband: "It sent chills up and down my spine."

Right-to-lifers are far from pleased. Charles Dean Jr., president of the Tidewater chapter of the Virginia Society for Human Life, which heatedly attacked the clinic proposal at two public hearings, vowed to continue the fight in court. The group contends that in vitro fertilization can lead to abortion since flawed embryos will be destroyed before or after implantation. Objections have also been voiced in other quarters. Last week Harvard Biologist Ruth Hubbard, an outspoken feminist, charged that "the push toward this technology reinforces the all-too-prevalent view in our society that women's lives are unfulfilled or indeed worthless unless we bear children." Since so little is known about the consequences of such methods, she said, women and their test-tube babies will be the "guinea pigs of research."

Controversy is sure to continue; several institutes in other states are considering opening similar clinics. Meanwhile the Virginia doctors hope to do their first implant in March.

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