Another hypothetical. I’ll make the backstory brief.
Washington and Zoe are married and in their early 40s, with two children – Zach, age 6, and Winnie, 2. Wash is pro-choice and Zoe, pro-life. Though neither is politically active, Zoe has always been passionate in her belief an unborn fetus is a person deserving of legal protection; she has said that she hopes she would never choose her own life over her unborn child’s, as she would consider that murder no less than if she and ate Winnie to avoid starvation. Washington thinks this is bullshit in general, and horrifying in particular; he loves Zoe as he loves no one else in the world and finds the idea of a world without her in it hellish; moreover, he feels that their existing children need her. They have long since agreed to disagree, as they do agree that they love one another too much to argue over something that they will never agree on.
Zoe is carrying her third child, which she is quite looking forward to . Early in the preganancy – long before the fetus is viable – she collapses at work and is rushed to the hospital. Naturally, Washington rushes to the hopsital, where the doctors tell him that Zoe is unconscious and unable to communicate. In their judgment, the pregnancy must be terminated, and quickly, if she is to survive. But she has left no advance directive; they cannot do such a thing without his consent.
What should Washington do?
Poll coming in a minute. There might be a good reason to wait for me to put it up before responding, but damned if I can think of one.
This is ultimately a non-debate. Pro-lifers almost universally acknowledge that abortions may sometimes be necessary in order to save the mother’s life. In such situations, the physician should attempt to save both the mother and the unborn, if possible. This means a premature delivery if the unborn is viable – by C-section, if necessary.
If the unborn is not yet viable, then he or she would not survive if the mother were to die, in which case the physician is clearly obligated to save the mother’s life.
Since both would die if nothing is done or if the husband insisted on the doctors continuing to try to save them both, the husband would be killing both of them if he chose that option. This is, or should be, a more shameful thing for him to do (in both her and his eyes) than ending the pregnancy.
Now that the poll is up - I would choose probably all of the terminate options, and for the last one, I’d say that two deaths would be worse than one.
If Zoe dies before the unborn child is viable, then the unborn child will die. So the choice is loss of one life, or loss of two lives. Yes, it’s a no-brainer, even for the strictest pro-lifer.
Taking the hypothetical and clarification as written, I would respect Zoe’s wishes, and not authorize the abortion. Yes, that will kill her…and another piece of whatever soul I may have left, but to do otherwise would fail to recognize Zoe for what she is. When the children are old enough, I will tell them what I did, and why. Maybe they’ll forgive me. Maybe not.
This fetus is dead either way. I’d authorize to terminate the pregnancy and tell her the truth: the fetus had died and had to be removed to save her life. Basically this is a miscarriage. It sucks, but its better than the death of a wife and mother.
The lack of consistency of views in this poll is remarkable. The most common simplistic argument for abortion rights is that it is the woman’s body and she can do what she chooses no matter what because of that. Now, the situation is changed away from the standard one and people are saying that they would do whatever they want with her body regardless of what she wants because it matches up better with the outcome they want. That isn’t logically defensible.
Gianna Beretta Molla might disagree with you. 'Cept she can’t, on account of being dead and thus unable to use the interwebs. From the Wikipedia article:
She was canonized five years back.
For those of you who would go against Zoe’s implicit decision: what if she were conscious when Washington arrived at the hospital, and remained so long enough to say that she did not consent?
Gianna’s situation has an important difference: she sacrificed herself to save the baby. In the OP, there is no chance of saving the baby in any case. I’m pro-life, but this is a no-brainer for me too. Save the mother, if that’s all you can do.
The problem is that it’s not the same as the hypothetical in the OP: Saint Gianna’s child lived. In your hypothetical there is no possibility that the unborn child will live.
Your OP merely says that the pro-lifer left no explicit directive. That’s a subtle but significant distinction.
If the physicians deem that an abortion is NECESSARY, this must mean that the unborn cannot be delivered prematurely or that it would not survive such a delivery. Either that or the physicians are behaving irresponsibly. In such situations, there is no debate. It is better for one person to live than for both to die.
Now, suppose that there were some hypothetical scenario in which only one or the other could live. This is an extremely hyopthetical situation, but for the sake of argument, let’s grant it. In such situations, the ethical thing for a physician to do would be to take the route which maximizes the chances for one of them to survive. The physician may wind up being wrong, but that would be an error in judgment, not an ethical error.
The poll does not seem to prevent me from selecting multiple answers (although I haven’t clicked the “Vote Now” button yet). Is a multiple answer okay, OP?
I should amend that last post. Zoe did not leave an explicit concession, but in your scenario, she did say that she would not want to have to choose her life over her child’s. That’s not quite the same as a concession, but let’s grant that point anyway.
Ultimately though, it’s still a non-debate. This is not a situation in which she’d have to choose her life over that of someone else. This is a situation in which she either lives, or both of them die. By no stretch of the imagination would she be giving up her life so that someone else can live. Ergo, my point still stands.
Except, of course that she’s not sacrificing the fetus’s life to her own (which is what she said she wouldn’t do), because it’s not viable. She never said that she was willing to die WITH her fetus.