TV REVIEWS : ‘Whose Side Are You On?’ Explores Some Tough Ethical Issues

“Whose Side Are You On?,” a CBS News series that gets a three-week tryout beginning at 8:30 tonight on Channels 2 and 8, is not to be confused with “What’s My Line?” Host Mike Wallace does walk around in what looks like a game-show set, and the unlikely four-member panel of tennis great Arthur Ashe, actress Meredith Baxter Birney, New Republic columnist Fred Barnes and ex-San Jose police chief Joseph McNamara do look like they’re about to vie for super cash prizes.

But guess what? They’re about to think about, discuss and debate a tough ethical issue. In this case, euthanasia. On prime time?!? On Friday?!?

Believe it. And believe it or not, the show’s 30-minute format doesn’t cheapen the complex content or the thrust of the pro-and-con arguments. Wallace introduces the rough outline of the case--Bob Harper is on trial for second-degree murder in aiding in the death of his cancer-ridden wife, Ginger--and hands it over to two lawyers. We’re the jury.

Attorneys Nancy Gertner, favoring euthanasia rights, and Henry Owens, opposing, act more like “60 Minutes”-style interviewers than traditional advocates, but their arguments emerge as cogent, sound, even dramatic, as Owens reveals facts about the Harper case that create a real ethical quagmire. When Wallace turns to his panel, the time factor thwarts any thorough discussion of the ethics of the right to die, though Birney and Ashe stand up well next to the often-supercilious Barnes.

The lawyers carry the show, however, and next week’s is a real lawyers’ match: Susan Estrich vs. Alan Dershowitz on whether rape victims’ names should go public.