Page 4 Daily Nebraskan . Wednesday, September 5. 1984
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Mario and Elsa Rios wanted to they went- to the Quet n Victoria using "vitro fertilization" to create
have a baby. Medical Center in Melbourne, life. ES3 were removed from Mrs.
They had tried and failed. So Australia, where doctors were Rios and fertilized with sperm
r w ii it v -
from an unidentified donor. Fer
tilized eg3 then were reimplant
ed on two occasions, but Mrs.
Rios did not become pregnant.
Last year the Rioses died In a
plane crash in Chile. They did not
leave any instructions about what
to do with the frozen embryos
that belonged to them.
The question of what to do
with the embryos caused a stir in
the papers. A committee consid
ering the legal and ethical prob
lems of vitro fertilization was asked
to consider the!Rioses' embryos'
case.
The Associated Press ran a story
about the decision of the com
mittee Tuesday. The committee
recommended that the embryos
be destroyed unless public opin
ion is against it.
The committee, made up of
scientists, theologians, philosop
hers and legal experts, decided
that the embryos had no life and
no rights. That may be true.
But the Rioses went to alot of
trouble and expense for the right
to bring new life into the world
and the doctors at Victoria Med
ical Center began life. To them,
those embryos were potential
human beings.
To destroy the embryos, which
are the culmination of years and
years of research and experi
mentation, eccra3 a tragic waste.
Women in the United States,
Australia, Japan and other coun
tries have requested that they
have the embryos implanted in
them.
There hza been speculation that
the embryos might be able to
claim the estate of the Rioses,
about $1 million.
It seems the committee took
the easy way out. If the embryos
are destroyed, the question of
claim or adoption will not have to
be answered.
The embryos could not have
been created without the help of
doctors, and a lot of women would
be glad to adopt them without
or with the inheritance. It some
how seems sacrilegious to toy
with life by creating it, then des
troying it.
Australian officials had said in
June they would act on the recom
mendation of the committee. Fort
unately they have not. They are
allowing a three-month period
for debate before acting.
The embryos might net survive
even if they were implanted in
another woman, but if there are
people willing to raise the fragile
embryos as their own, it would be
asinine to destroy them.
oniroversy over tax disclosures a w
asie of time
ne recipe recently submitted for a
Democratic "cookbook" was for
"Chocolate Meese":
"Take a Cabinet full of bad eggs, $1 5,000
worth of stock (source undisclosed, of
course probably fowl), and a generous
pinch of greed. Combine ingredients in a
heavily mortgaged house in California
and shake until money falls out of the
George
1 m will
trees. Quickly fold in six cream puff
government jobs and transfer to Washing
ton pressure cooker."
The author? Geraldine Ferraro.
Compared with her disclosure forms,
Meese's are of encyclopedic detail and
accuracy. A typical Meese crime against
civic hygiene was a failure to list on one
form a $15,000 loan listed on another
form. Such sums are petty cash in the
Ferraro household, where family mem
bers lent her 1978 campaign more than
$100,000. That was illegal, but I say char
ity begins at home and, besides, Demo
crats candidly champion "family values."
The disclosure and campaign financing
rules she has broken most of them
enacted by people of her bent are silly.
They invade privacy, unreasonably res
trict the free political use of personal
resources, and institutionalize the in
nuendo that public officials are unsleep
ingly eager to bend public policy for pri
vate gain. But there they are rules. And
Ferraro, more eager to be seen these days
as a prosecutor than a liberal, loves rules.
In her acceptance speech she said,
The rules say everyone in our society
should contribute their fair share." And
people like Ferraro are not bashful about
judging what is fair.
Second-tier partnerships, butterfly
spreads welcome to the wonderful
world of tax laws which reward, and
hence produce, persons nimble at the art
of tax avoidance. Mondale is a big boy,
and a former member of the Senate
Finance committee. He should know that
a real-estate operator is apt to have tax
returns that are, er, creative thanks in
part to laws written by the finance com
mittee. In his acceptance speech, Mondale said:
To the corporations and freeloaders who
play the loopholes or pay no taxes, my
message is: Your free ride is over." Oops.
Well, if Ferraro's husband's tax returns
cramp the Mondale-Ferraro rhetorical
style, good. People who rely on populist
demagoguery deserve to be embarrassed.
But what has all this to do with Ferraro's
fitness for national leadership? Precious
little.
Voyeurism can cloak itself in the re
spectability, such as it is, of journalism.
It is marvelous to see Republicans try
to keep straight faces -while saying they
are lathered up about Ferraro's disclo
sure forms because they are worried
about conflicts of interest Regarding her
husband's tax forms, it is wonderful to
hear conservatives, who are not known
for despising legal reductions of tax liabil
ities, wonder if her husband overdid it. If
he did, he had a little help from a friend
Ronald Reagan, who in 1981 enlarged
tax breaks affecting real-estate transac
tions. It is time for a freeze. Republicans and
democrats should negotiate a mutual
and verifiable freeze on the production
and deployment of sanctimony and hypo
crisy. 1SS4, Washington Pest Writers Croup
Kerry says :busi
must haveeduca
nes
ov. Bob Kerrey never forgets his roots.
Businessmen large and small must have quaked
in their boots as first Commonwealth Savings
Co., then State Security Savings toppled.
Not to mention the everyday reminders: farm sales,
foreclosings, national chains swallowing local business
men. Discouraging pictures to folks wishing to expand
or start new businesses in Lincoln.
0 i Mona
Koppelman
Kerrey, part owner of Grandmother's Skillet restau
rants in Lincoln and Omaha, has a personal interest in
the course of such events as well as concern for fellow
Nebraskans.
The key to getting individuals the opportunity to
operate their own businesses is making certain there is
affordable financing," Kerrey said in an interview last
week. "Right now I have severe doubts about how far
we've gone to achieve affordable financing."
Kerrey said he is particularly concerned for the small
and medium-sized businesses like the restaurants he
owns.
"It's a lot easier for us to finance now that weYe got &
track record, cash flow and cash in the bank," Kerrey
said.
Was it tough when he started out, back in 1972?
"Oh, God," Kerrey said, smiling ruefully and shaking
his head. "Five short-term loans, pulling in $400 a month
salary . . . The only reason we survived was because we
had a bookkeeper who could stretch payables from 30
days to 180 days. A wizard with numbers."
Numbers are the name cf the game for small busi
nessmen just starting out Each loan transaction is
evaluated on its own merit, a Lincoln loan officer said,
but the numbers are what count.
The loan officer said he looks for four main things on
each small business loan application:
Past financial history, if the loan is made to an
existing business. Loan officers look at trends, month to
month and season by season, to examine cash flow
problems.
Collateral, both business and personal. Equip
ment, buildings and land are primary sources of collat
eral in existing businesses.
New businesses must often base collateral on prop
osal holdings: anything from homes, to cars to savings
bonds.
"If folks dont want to personally guarantee their loan,
that puts up a red flag to us immediately," the loan
ofScer said.
CctiS'-d en F-9 5
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