Nearly Forty Years Ago, Former President Kennedy signed GMAT Reading Comprehension

Reading Passage Question

Nearly forty years ago, former President Kennedy signed the National Reproductive Policy Act, this
nation's first major federal law addressing federal reproductive freedom. Although the nation has

(5) now witnessed almost forty years of continuing debate about abortion freedom law, a relatively new element has recently entered the controversy: the use of partial birth procedures
and their high risks in facilitating voluntary third

(10) trimester pregnancy terminations. Before the development of techniques to facilitate artial birth abortions, when an unwanted pregnancy occurred, a government agency otten simply told a patient she could only abort during the first

(15) trimester. Doctors performing the procedures often relied on visual observations to determine compliance with the legal time limits. Most reproductive freedom professionals consider flexible legal guidelines an improvement over pre-1960 restrictions because it

(20) provides a factual and scientific basis for the abortion methodology rather than an intuitive or emotional basis. Accordingly, many reproductive freedom professionals regard formal abortion laws to be neutral policy tools that can be employed by the government

(25) to make sound policy judgments that assure efficient and appropriate procedures. But are abortion laws and their proponents really neutral political issues? Analysis of the choices that must be made in reproductive issues

(30) makes the answer clear. Because pregnancy termination depends on choices for which there is no a priori legal method of deciding from among
available assumptions, decisions ultimately depends largely, if not predominantly, on values positions rather

(35) than on legal precedent . Laws must now govern partial birth abortion methodology for women's health, including a determination of whether the procedure will cause an adverse health effect; dose-response assessment of drugs, an analysis

(40) of the relationship between an administered dose and the incidence of the adverse health effect; exposure assessment, an analysis of the processes and pathways by which contact with a labor- inducement drug creates opportunity for exposure;

(45) and risk characterization, the process of identifying the incidence of adverse health effects under various clinical conditions-requires the application of some judgment that must ultimately rely on something less than legally-proven principles. Indeed, many

(50) of the choices that must be made in completing a risk assessment must be viewed as pure values judgments. For example, in the hazard identification portion of an assessment, the decision on picking a confidence level to determine statistically whether

(55) there has been a positive determination of whether a labor-inducement drug is a hazard is a pure values judgment. Decisions on reproductive freedom based on current risk assessment procedures should therefore be

(60) viewed primarily as ethical choices rather than as technically dictated conclusions. It is important in an age of increasing scientific complexity that interested parties attempt to understand the values positions and ethical issues that underlie

(65) legally derived policy choices. Government must bring greater clarity to the debate about reproductive freedom through identification of the embedded values positions and issues in therapeutic abortion Procedures.

“Nearly Forty Years Ago, Former President Kennedy signed” is a GMAT reading comprehension passage with answers. Candidates must have a solid grip in English GMAT reading comprehension. There are comprehension questions in the above GMAT Reading Comprehension passages. GMAT Reading Comprehension Questions are delineated to evaluate candidates’ abilities to analyze and be conceptual for the answers. Candidates can brace up and take preparation by answering GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solution and Explanation

1. Which one of the following best expresses the main point of the passage?

(A) Therapeutic abortion is an improvement over past methods because it is based more on factual evidence than on intuition.
(B) Former President Kennedy did more than his predecessors to protect the reproductive freedom of women by approving the use of first trimester abortion.
(C) Though perhaps more radical than previous birth control measures, partial birth abortion is a value-free process.
(D) While the concept of partial birth abortion is enticing from a scientific viewpoint, this method is so expensive that its use is impractical on a large scale.
(E) Since past abortion procedures were effective in the first trimester, the government should not have approved further restrictions on its use or implementation.

2. All of the following are explicitly mentioned in the passage as part of the adverse health effects EXCEPT

(A) visual observation
(B) exposure assessment
(C) analysis of labor-inducement drugs
(D) risk characterization
(E) dose-response assessment

3. The author most probably mentions "confidence level" (line 54) in order to

(A) demonstrate that partial birth procedures are safer than past abortion methods
(B) question the accuracy of physician's clinical observations
(C) suggest that government should eliminate ambiguities in its reproductive freedom agenda
(D) show that nonlegal principles can affect subsequent legal decisions
(E) strengthen the notion that the National Reproductive Policy Act needs to be modified

4. The author suggests which one of the following about abortion methods that predated the development of the partial birth procedure?

(A) They are considered to be completely ineffective in protecting women's health.
(B) President Kennedy's National ReproductivePolicy Act was based on their success.
(C) Many reproductive freedom professionals are not satisfied with the results produced by these methods.
(D) They are often difficult to apply because they depend on precise time limitations.
(E) The best features of these methods should be integrated into the partial birth process.

5. Which of the following words, as it appears in the passage, best supports the author's view of the role of non-legal components in the risk assessment process?

(A) improvement (line 19)
(B) neutral (line 28)
(C) adverse (line 41)
(D) opportunity (line 44)
(E) underlie (line 64)

6. The passage's reference to the "factual and scientific basis" of abortion rights process in line 20 serves which of the following functions?

(A) It explains the government's unwillingness to choose between older methods and the assessment of newer ones.
(B) It outines the differences among reproductive freedomists over the practicality of visual observation techniques.
(C) It underscores the belief of reproductive freedomists that risk assessment is a useful method for evaluating new procedures.
(D) It introduces birth control policy choices for which there is no a priori assessment method.
(E) It highlights the attitude of reproductive freedomists toward the National Reproductive Policy Act.

7. The author of the passage is primarily concerned with

(A) comparing risk assessment of new procedures with earlier abortion methods
(B) explaining why government should make explicit the ethical choices involved in reproductive freedom choices
(C) highlighting government's inability to deal effectively with reproductive freedom issues
(D) reviewing the evolution of abortion methods over the past two decades
(E) proposing a new method for reproductive freedom that incorporates the best features of risk assessment

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