A White House promise.

MANY BABIES born with spina bifida-an exposed spine-grow up to lead normal lives. Some lead lives of extraordinary achievement-Orel Hershiser of the Los Angeles Dodgers, for one.

Enter the Bush Administration and a Mr. Robert Fulton, who is bcing considered for the post of assistant secretary of Health and Human Services. Mr. Fulton apparently had some definite views about spina-bifida babies when he was director of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.

As director, he had oversight of Oklahoma Children's Memorial Hospital, where, between 1977 and 1982, doctors conducted a euthanasia research project of some interest. Half thc spina-bifida babies were treated and half were not. Twenty-four of the latter, predictably, died painful deaths. The doctors seemed rather pleased with what they had done, going on to write it up for the journal Pediatrics. They reported that the "babies died at between one and 189 days" of age, probably from "respiratory-tract difficulties, combined with an acute infectious process." They noted that some people might raise ethical questions, but "the conclusive justification for selection in spinabifida cases appears to be the documented suffering that is not only reduced but prevented, if one is persuaded that death is preferable to life under certain circumstances." The decision about which babies should live and which should die was guided by a mathematical equation, QL = NE x H+ S) "quality of life" is determined by multiplying the "patient's natural endowment, both physical and intellectual," by the sum of the "contribution from home, family, and society"). Not surprisingly, poor children tended to get slated for death.

The Oklahoma program was exposed by Pulitzer

Prize-winning journalist Carlton Sherwood in a docmentary on CNN and in a series of articles in the Washington Times. In the course of his investigations, Sherwood discussions the program at length with Fulton, who intially expreseed surpise and outrage, promising a through investigation. According to Sherwood, he then proceeded to engineer a coverup and to this day "defends a euthanasia program that has been roundly condemned by every medical authority in the country.

If he becomes assistant secretary, Robert Fulton will be working under Sefcrtary Louis Sullivan. Dr. Sullivan, it will be remembered, appeared to be in an awful muddle about his views on legal protection for the unborn and the uise of aborted babies for experimental and other purposes. After rigorous coaching, he finally got his lines down for the Senate hearings and was confirmed. Dr. Sullivan was confirmed in very large part because the White House promised that he would be surrounded by key subordinates who have no doubt that, with repect to the unborn and the handicapped, life is preferable to death. The consideration of Robert Fulton for assistant secretary seems a very odd way to keep a promise. We must pray that he drinks, chases women, and has a lucrative consultancy.