The Scientific, Ethical and Social Challenge of Assisted Reproduction

In September of 1993, a three-year, $95,000 (direct costs) grant was awarded to the Ethics Institute at Dartmouth College from the Leadership Opportunity in Sciences and Humanities Program, jointly sponsored by the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the National Science Foundation (NSF). From October, 1993 through December, 1994, a seven-member faculty team developed a sequence of two multidisciplinary courses in the area of assisted reproduction. These courses are model courses in three respects: they are exemplary of the kind of interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary courses required under Dartmouth's new core curriculum; they are the first in a series of multidisciplinary courses in science, ethics, and society introduced by Dartmouth's Ethics Institute; and these two initial courses will serve as models for other multidisciplinary undergraduate courses at Dartmouth and nation-wide.

College Course 6:
Assisted Reproduction: The Scientific, Ethical, and Social Challenge of a New Biomedical Technology

The new undergraduate multidisciplinary course was offered for the first time during Winter Term 1995. College Course 6 (CoCo 6) proved to be an exciting multidisciplinary course for the 75 enrolled students. These course was taught by a faculty team with expertise in moral philosophy, religious studies, reproductive biology, clinical assisted reproduction, psychology, social sciences, and women's studies. Core faculty members include Catherine P. Cramer, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Ronald M. Green, Professor, Department of Religion, and Judy E. Stern, Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dartmouth Medical School and Director of the Embryology and Andrology Laboratory at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. In addition to lectures and open discussion, the students attended small group discussions, which were co-facilitated by the faculty team and student interns. The students also visited the Embryology and Andrology Laboratory at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. The course included three distinguished guest lecturers (Barbara Katz Rothman, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Baruch College and feminist writer, Howard W. Jones, co-founder of the first in vitro fertilization program in the U.S, and Dena Davis, Assistant Professor of Law at Cleveland-Marshall College) sponsored by a GTE Lectureship Series, and a panel of individuals who had sought assisted reproductive technologies to begin a family. In March, ten CoCo 6 students attended a weekend workshop in Boston on preimplantation genetic diagnosis. The Dartmouth students made an important contribution to the workshop. They were active questioners from the floor and informed participants in the small group discussions. Their learning in College Course 6 was clearly evident. One of the workshop planners paid a high compliment to them when, in his closing remarks, he expressed special thanks to the Dartmouth students for their presence.

Some comments from students when interviewed about the course:

Stephanie Adamson '98, a government major thinking of minoring in genetics, who is also the daughter of an in vitro fertilization practitioner.

A lot of people don't think of the scope of infertility-they think it's something that happens to someone else. And there really hasn't been a framework established for thinking about this before, because the technology to 'treat' infertility is entirely new. The course made you think about social consequences and evaluate your own morals. I don't think you could go through that course without examining your moral positions."

Jonathan Zimmerman '98, who plans to major in history.

"I took away from the course an increased understanding of the role technology plays in everyone's lives. I also took away a better understanding of various ways of looking at a problem in depth, listening to all arguments, taking what I liked from each of them and coming to my own conclusions. I also learned a lot of science, and it wasn't intimidating."

Kimberly Williams '96, a psychology/pre-med major and volunteer in DHMC's intensive-care nursery.

"I think most people were there every class meeting, and there were a lot of people who never skipped because we were always learning something."

"It was really important that the instructors kept their biases out, that we could all sit down and talk, and our opinions had equal weight. We ended up educating each other in different ways."

College Course 80:
Advanced Research on Special Topics in the Scientific, Ethical, and Social Issues Raised by Assisted Reproduction.

College Course 80, a multi disciplinary seminar, was offered during Spring Term 1995 to students who completed College Course 6 and wanted to pursue further research in this area. Following an intensive review of ethical theory and the moral dimensions of personhood presented, the students focused on specific topics of interest to conduct research and present final papers to the class. A sample of research paper titles:

Both College Course 6 and College Course 80 were offered again during Winter and Spring Terms 1996.