In this summary of legislative activities the Minnesota House passed a bill providing for expanding the number of Metropolitan Council members from 15 to 17 and have the chairman appointed by the governor. The other 16 members would run in newly created districts. The House gave preliminary approval to bill reorganizing state government, creating a department of finance with a Commissioner of Finance appointed by the governor, and a legislative audit commission and a legislative auditor. The Senate judiciary committee approved a bill banning experimentation and research on a ?living conceptive?, defined as any human life from fertilization through the first 265 days of life. Thomas Marhar (sp?), clinical instructor of medicine at Ramsey County Hospital, testified for the bill, saying the law was necessary after the Supreme Court?s abortion decision which will make many more fetuses available for laboratory research. He says: the new law and the trend in this country is away from Judeo-Christian ethics, and the state of medical ethics at this time hasn?t been thought out and it will be years before it will be worked out. Speaking against the proposal was Dr. Bernard Merkin from the University of Minnesota says at they have probably the most active and essentially the only unit in the world looking at the effect of drugs on developing organisms, and after delivery in young children. He says the ability to study tissue from therapeutic abortions for growth abnormalities in fetuses exposed to drugs is crucial information.