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Princeton Philosopher Paul Ramsey offers another version of that response. Ramsey comes from the other side of the great research debate. He argues that children may never be made guinea pigs and that we have no right to "consent" on their behalf. A most stringent Kantian, he would prohibit all experimentation on nonconsenting subjects. But for those of us who see the requirement for research as a moral imperative equal in force to the imperative to respect the individual, he counsels: if you must do it, do it, but do not deny the moral force of the imperative you violate. In a society that grants the future some claims, a society that will not countenance the endless destruction of children by polio — or by hypoplastic left-heart syndrome — " research medicine, like politics, [becomes] a realm in which men have to 'sin bravely.' " Baby Fae lived, and died, in that realm. Only the bravery was missing: no one would admit the violation. Bravery was instead fatuously ascribed to Baby Fae, a creature as incapable of bravery as she was of circulating her own blood. Whether this case was an advance in medical science awaits the examination of the record by the scientific community. That it was an adventure in medical ethics is already clear.
— By Charles Krauthammer