Art Caplan
By Karen Pallarito
A conversation with Penn's renowned ethicist.
DUSTIN FENSTERMACHER / WONDERFUL MACHINE

As a Columbia University philosophy student in the 1970s, Arthur Caplan listened to ongoing discussions about the ethics of genetic testing for intelligence and wondered whether similar debates were stirring in medicine. He ended up studying medicine for two years before deciding it wasn't for him, but the experience fueled his fascination with the fledgling field of medical ethics.

"In fact I witnessed a screaming fight between Landrum Shettles [a pioneer of in vitro fertilization techniques] and the head of the OB-GYN department, whose name was Raymond Vande Wiele, about whether or not a test-tube baby experiment could go on, so I knew then there was something going...

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