Over the weekend, someone asked me if President Obama’s lift of the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research could lead to higher rates of abortion. At first, I was a little stunned by the question, but I began to think about all the potential problems, and ultimately my answer was “maybe.”

The reason my answer was “maybe,” is because in an unregulated world, the possibilities of science for profit become even larger. There is a gap between the expectations of many patients and the realities of what current science can offer us.

With the world entrenched in a global economic downturn, the business of science can easily take over, sometimes outweighing the medical implications. Already, years of research ― especially with umbilical cord stem cells ― have led to significant discoveries that, although seem very impressive in the laboratory, have failed to make their practical application in clinical medicine.

I hope that President Obama doesn’t rush into fully lifting the embryonic stem-cell research federal funding ban without the proper checks and balances that are necessary to keep the ethical and protective side of science always in the forefront.

During the 1960s, psychologist Stanley Milgram set out to study how obedient human beings can be to authority.  Three months after the start of the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, he set up an experiment designed to determine whether ordinary people could be coaxed to inflict suffering on innocent people simply because they were ordered to do so. 

In the now-famous Milgram experiment, volunteers were told by an “experimentor” that they were participating in a study about learning.  Each individual believed he or she was the “teacher,” administering electric shocks to another volunteer in a separate room each time that person failed to answer a question correctly about word pairs.  In one version of the study, the “learners” mentioned having heart conditions. 

As the learner made more and more mistakes, the shocks were increased.  If the teacher hesitated, the experimentor stated that the experiment had to continue.

In fact, only the “teachers” giving the shocks were being studied.  The learners were researchers, too.  No real electric shocks were being administered, though the learners — who were good actors —screamed as the teachers really dialed up the electricity.

Heart conditions or not, about two-thirds of the study volunteers continued to deliver electric shocks to their students, even when they were told to deliver the maximum 450 volts — enough to cause permanent injury or even death.

Milgram had proven that average individuals presented with rules and an authority figure to enforce them (the experimentor), would hurt other innocent people they had never met.

Now, some 45 years later, psychology professor Jerry Burger at Santa Clara University has confirmed Milgram’s findings.  In a modified version of the Milgram experiment (with somewhat lower voltages, but plenty of “learner” suffering), volunteers remained willing to torture their students for wrong answers, as long as they were consistently told to do so by an “experimentor.”  In fact, about 70 percent of the volunteers were willing to keep delivering shocks until the highest voltage level was reached (this time, 150 volts).

The Burger experiment has caused a stir in the psychology research community because of concerns that volunteers were not informed that the experiment was a “sham.”  Although the Burger team tried to screen out those who might be incapacitated by guilt after participating, or who might become depressed, there’s really no way to know if they might be harmed by the experience of “hurting” another person so badly.

That ethical debate is likely to rage on for some time.  But the data isn’t being challenged:  Most human beings are willing to inflict terrible pain on innocent people they have never met when an authority figure consistently tells them to do so.  What does that say about us?  What does it predict about the potential for genocides and other calamities in the future?

I believe it tells us one very important thing about our view of decency and morality.  Our notion that there are evil people and good people among us is too simplistic.  A majority of us can lose our moral bearings and do the bidding of evil by ceding our own personal autonomy to that of someone who instructs us, with authority, to harm our fellow man.  This fault line between good and evil cuts through the hearts of the majority of us, not a rare and select group. 

This explains much about the behavior of street gangs and terrorist cells and cults and nations with strongmen with their sights set on the destruction of others.  When a group — even a whole country — is in the grip of a charismatic leader giving consistent and forceful instructions on what must be done, the population is likely to get in line and do it.  It doesn’t make every citizen of the nation the devil.  It doesn’t necessarily mean the country is filled with people who are, at heart, morally different than we are.  But it does mean that they can be passive instruments of untold suffering.

In this world, at this time, in our species, the field of psychology tells us it will depend on those with a clear vision and a strong voice and absolute resolve to protect the rights of others and oppose the forces of destructiveness sure to gather in the coming years.  Our safety and security and capacity for goodness all require strong leaders to stand firm for the very best in us, and stand even firmer against the worst in any of us.

A startling new study from the Josephson Institute, an ethics think tank in Los Angeles, reveals that 64 percent of today’s high school students report having cheated on a test in the past year, while 30 percent have stolen from a store.

This data comes from an extensive survey the Josephson Institute conducted of 29,760 students at 100 randomly selected high schools across the nation.  Since students answered the questions anonymously, they presumably had less reason to lie on the survey than they do to lie, cheat or steal in class or in malls.

Another disheartening statistic:  About a third of students reported they plagiarized material from the Web and passed it off as their own. 

Here’s the really concerning part, though.  Despite obvious character weakness in these high schoolers (taken as a group), an astounding 93 percent reported being satisfied with their ethics.  Seventy-seven percent agreed with the sentiment that they are better at doing “right” than most people they know.

We are fast becoming a nation unrestrained by truth.   The weakness of character in teenagers is only the latest symptom of a willingness to lie that permeates our culture.  This pathology is getting worse, generation-by-generation, and I believe it represents a threat to the American family, the rule of law and our economy.  It is the Trojan Horse amidst us, from which can pour an epidemic of fiction that ultimately cripples our ability to truthfully and effectively address our very real problems.

Think about it.  Our nation witnessed the bursting of the Internet bubble, which occurred partly because we accepted the fiction—the lie—that companies need not be valued according to their earnings.  It mattered more how compelling a “story” could be told about the company’s future.  We have witnessed the explosion of the housing bubble, based on a collective willingness to lend money to those who lacked sufficient credit and to bundle murky assets together into such nebulous financial instruments that they could float high into the sky and gather like storm clouds.  We have become immune to politicians saying one thing and doing another.  Scandals now need to be very compelling drama to move us at all. 

The fuel for this affliction of fiction—of lying—is, I believe, a ceding of our real life experience and real character to the manipulation of real-life by technology (including the Internet) that have the potential to disconnect people from their thoughts and feelings, as well as entertainment (including some reality television programs and films) that blurs the boundary between reality and fantasy.  I’d throw in the proliferation of special effects in entertainment, the use of computerized games that invite our children into simulated realities, our addiction to athletes and actors who act out badly, and the burgeoning and unrestrained use of prescription medications that sometimes create too much distance from real emotions (while insight oriented therapies are abandoned).

We need a national program to address how we can return to our core selves, including our instincts about what is right and what is wrong.  The proper place for this preventive psychological medicine is the schools.  But the proper timing for implementation has to be as early as kindergarten. 

Only through a concerted effort to maintain our grip on truth and reality and character and decency will they be rescued.

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author. His newest book, “Living the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty” has launched a new self-help movement. Check out Dr. Ablow’s website at livingthetruth.com or e-mail him at info@keithablow.com.

A test that can detect Down’s syndrome from the blood of pregnant women, which would be the first reliable noninvasive prenatal test for the chromosomal disorder, has raised the prospect of routine screening for the condition for every expectant mother who wants it.

The experimental procedure, developed in Hong Kong, has been shown to diagnose 90 percent of Down’s syndrome cases in a small trial, while also correctly identifying 97 percent of fetuses that do not have the condition.

If its accuracy can be improved and it is validated in larger patient trials, which scientists believe should take three to five years, it would transform prenatal testing for Down’s.

At present this is provided only for women at high risk of having a Down’s baby because the current procedure is invasive and can cause a miscarriage. It requires amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling (CVS), which involve inserting a needle into the womb to remove amniotic fluid surrounding the fetus, or a small piece of the placenta.

If your heart stops for an hour-and-a half, are you dead? There’s a walking, talking French man who might disagree with you.

The 45-year-old man suffered a massive heart attack and rescuers used cardiac massage to try and revive him without success before transferring him to a nearby hospital.

He was revived just as doctors were preparing to remove his organs for transplants, now fueling ethical debates in France about when a person is dead.