Medicine

Terry talks to activists on both sides of the abortion debate:

1) Pro-choice activist Kathryn "Kitty" Kolbert. She is an attorney who argued against Pennsylvania's restrictive abortion law in the Supreme Court last year. This summer, she founded the Center for Reproductive Law And Policy to focus on reproductive rights world wide.

Two interviews in this segment:

1) Jean Hunt gives a grassroots perspective on abortion rights and accessiblity. Hunt is a registered nurse who has been an activist in the women's health movement since the late 60's .From 1988-1992 she was director of the Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center for Women in Philadelphia. She says that even if the federal government ensures the right to an abortion, local politics, health care economics and physician shortages make it difficult for women to get abortions.

Weddington is the lawyer who represented Jane Roe in the Supreme Court. Weddington was in her 20s when she argued the landmark abortion case. She has a new memoir called "A Question of Choice."

Transplant surgeon pioneer Thomas Starzl. Last June he supervised the surgical team that transplanted a baboon's liver into a 35 year-old man who was dying of hepatitis B. It has since become known that the patient was HIV-positive, though he showed no symptoms of the disease. The case raised questions about whether it's ethical to "experiment" on a person who is HIV-positve. Starzl has a new book, called "The Puzzle People."

Physician and photographer David Heiden. Heiden worked in the refugee camps of eastern Sudan during the Ethiopian famine of 1985. His book, "Dust to Dust," chronicles the experience using his personal journal entries and photographs. Heiden has also been a medical relief worker at refugee camps in Thailand and Somolia. (published by Temple University Press, Philadelphia).

Pathologist, professor, and essayist Lewis Thomas. As an essayist he takes a philosophical look at biomedicine. His books include the "The Lives of a Cell," and "The Medusa and the Snail," which were both best sellers. But he began writing for only the medical community with his 1974 column in the "New England Journal of Medicine." Terry talks with him from his hospital room, where Thomas is recovering from several ailments. He has a new book, "The Fragile Species," (published by Scribner's)

Medical anthropologist Andrea Sankar. She's written a new book that explains how to take care of a dying loved one at home. It's called "Dying At Home: A Family Guide for Caregiving." It's published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.

Writer Mark L. Pummer, co-author (with Charles Mann) of "The Aspirin Wars: Money, Medicine, and 100 Years of Rampant Competition." The book traces the history of aspirin from its discovery in Germany in 1897. Eventually it spread overseas and the competition began. Because all aspirins are essentially identical, companies had to use marketing and advertising to promote their product as better than another.

Doctor Rony Brauman, the president of "Doctors Without Borders," the French-based medical
aid organization. There the largest such organization in the world, with thousands of volunteer physicians who have traveled to sites of war, disease, famine, or natural disaster throughout the world. (In France, the group's called Medecins Sans Frontieres).

Author Daniel Callahan. He is an expert on medical ethics whose latest book is "What Kind of Life: The Limits of Medical Progress." The book questions the assumption that everyone should receive the most life sustaining medical care available. According to Callahan, we need to change our thinking about health and illness and focus on the quality of life rather than the extension of life. (Interview by Sedge Thomson)