Professor Albert Harris told students in his embryology class Monday that he thinks fetuses with Down syndrome should be aborted.

In his lecture notes, he wrote:

"In my opinion, the moral thing for older mothers to do is to have amniocentesis, as soon during pregnancy as is safe for the fetus, test whether placental cells have a third chromosome #21, and abort the fetus if it does. The brain is the last organ to become functional."

Harris, who has taught at UNC-CH for 35 years, said he has said the same thing many times before. He says it to spark discussion.

But Lara Frame, a senior in Harris' Biology 441, said the biology classroom is no place for opinion.

"Biology is not an opinion subject," said Frame, an anthropology and Spanish major from Charlotte. "It's a facts-based subject. And though abortion is legal, it's not a fact that you should abort every baby with Down syndrome.

"If this had been a philosophy class, I wouldn't have said anything."

Frame's brother, John, 18, has Down syndrome, and Frame said she became "physically ill" at Harris' remarks. She didn't say anything during Monday's class. She was too angry, she said.

Sarah Truluck, who coordinates membership in the campus group Best Buddies, also was appalled to hear what Harris had said. Best Buddies pairs college students with intellectually disabled adults in the community.

"It is shocking to find that a university professor can be so ignorant of the issues at stake," Truluck said in a release. "We will continue to fight the stereotype that people with disabilities are somehow less than human, and encourage others to do the same."

During and after Friday's class, several students said they don't think his comments were inappropriate.

"We are all adults, and we know that that's his opinion," said Meredith Binkley, a biology major. Any discussion of biology has an ethical component, she said.

"He's not trying to brainwash us," said Heather McCall, who said she has considered a teaching career. "I feel like if I do become a teacher I'm going to bring up issues that spark discussion. That's the whole point of being a teacher."

"I trust that we're all here intelligent enough to see both sides of the issue," Fan Zhao said.

Holden Thorp, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said if a complaint comes to administrators from a student it will be thoroughly investigated.

Harris, 64, has taught embryology at UNC-CH for 35 years. He has made the statement about Down syndrome and abortion many times. He says it's the moral thing to do because of the effect on families. "I know somebody who had a child like this, and it ruined their life," he said.

"It is a relevant thing. It is a teaching moment," he said, sitting in his office after class. But this year's experience has him wondering how, or whether, he'd ever say it again. "I'm not advising anybody," he continued.

"I'm trying in the most effective way possible to indicate that this is something that one can hold different opinions on. And I think it would be kind of weaselly to say it's a secret what my opinion is. But maybe I should."

'The moral thing'

Harris says he wouldn't follow his own moral position.

If he thought his wife was going to have a child with Down syndrome, he would still want to have the baby.

And he faced that situation.

His wife, then 34, was pregnant with their third child when she suffered major bleeding. Doctors told the couple to prepare for the worst.

"If our child had been born with Down syndrome as we expected, we would have cherished her," Harris said.

Though he believes aborting a fetus with Down syndrome is the moral thing to do, "I don't necessarily do the moral thing," he said.

"I don't like to see anything die," he explained. "I stopped doing herpetology and marine biology because it involved killing animals."

Asked when he believes life begins, Harris says he doesn't pose the question that way.

"I say that life doesn't begin. It continues, and it becomes more complicated, and eventually it becomes something that it's definitely murder to kill."