If the fetus absolutely isn’t viable, then what the mother is choosing could be considered suicide, and the father is under no obligation to follow her wishes on the matter. If one of her children fell out of the window of a 80 story building and she decided to jump out the window to “save” him", would the father be under any obligation to let her do it, no matter how much she wants to?
I didn’t select the one about better to hate him than to die, but I did select the other three [favoring termination]. For the last one, I added: Zoe’s responsibility to choose to remain alive to be a mother to her other two children.
I’m pro-choice. Zoe “…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” and as she is unavailable for further consultation, I would have to consider that her final say on the matter. While the word “hopes” is ambiguous, likening life-saving abortion to life-saving cannibalism is not.
Of course, Zoe’s permission could be that she is obliged not to directly do anything to kill the other fetus no matter what, and thus she may not consent to having it removed until it has died.
A professor of mine opined exactly that.
Terminate, and when she wakes up tell her she had a miscarriage. Problem solved. 
What if the fetus were potentially viable?
… I’m pretty sure there’s at least one Doper on this board who went through Skald’s hypothetical, except in real life …
I’m pro-choice. As others have said, she has not said anything about opting to essentially commit suicide rather than allow an abortion to happen for any reason. If she had specified that she’d rather be dead than have an abortion for any reason, I’d probably want to follow her wishes but would end up hating myself and maybe her for at least years to come, if not my lifetime. (Also, I would have prayed every day to avoid the possibility of ectopic pregnancy, as that might essentially kill her too.)
(This is a hypothetical, so I’m not entirely sure if doctors would let such a decision fall to a husband, anyway.)
At any rate, she’s a fool for not specifying something to her husband on the topic if she would indeed much rather die along with a non-viable fetus. If you hold any strong feelings about being kept alive/not being kept alive under certain circumstances, you damned well better at the minimum make this clear to whoever is authorized for you to make those decisions.
“Your mother died a futile death because I thought she’d rather go down with the ship than live with the unavoidable death of your unborn sibling.”
That about cover it?
The closest comparison I can make is to sati. And who here would stand by as a woman was thrown onto her husband’s funeral pyre, by choice or by force?
Isn’t this essentially the Schiavo case? Schiavo preferred to die than live in a vegetative state; the woman in the OP prefers to die than have an abortion.
Skald’s post at #3 seems to indicate that her wishes are clear enough.
Besides, she would presumably want to consider the possibility that the doctors are wrong, and that she will survive long enough, in some condition, to deliver a viable baby.
I’m pro-choice. I’d follow Zoe’s wishes IF they were better understood by me than the OP articulates. I’d assume so, if I was her husband and we’d had conversations about this in the past. In particular, there are two bits of data I don’t have which a husband probably would:
Is Zoe anti-abortion for previable fetuses to save the life of the mother? The OP doesn’t say. It clearly says she’s anti-abortion for a viable fetus, with her reference to killing and eating Winnie, but I’m not sure I can extrapolate that to a *previable *fetus. I’d assume any real discussion on this issue with an SO would explore things like, “when does life begin” and “does a fetus have a soul at conception” which would give me more insight into what Zoe would do if she could communicate with me right now.
Secondly, what do the doctors mean by “if she is to survive”? Can Zoe be placed on a vent and feeding tube to keep her biologically alive until the fetus is viable? From my read of the OP, I think that’s what she would prefer, rather than letting her and - more importantly to her - the fetus die now. But again, not enough information in the OP, and a relatively quick question to ask the docs in reality.
Now, I would HATE to be kept alive on a machine and used as a fleshy incubator, and I would much rather, myself as me, abort the fetus and get on with healing and taking care of my other kids. But it’s not my choice. It’s Zoe’s choice. And I’m going to do my damnedest to see that the procedures carried out on her are the ones *she *would choose if she could communicate with me.
The sticking point, to me, is that Zoe has never had to make the decision except in the hypothetical. Many people find that, when faced with real life, their decisions are different from what they’ve expressed when speaking hypothetically. Some antiabortionists, when faced with their own unwanted pregnancy, nonetheless choose to have an abortion. Many parents-to-be make plans about how they’re going to raise their kids, and then find themselves doing things differently once the kids are actually there. Per the OP, Zoe herself acknowledges this dilemma:
(emphasis added)
To me, that’s considerably different from saying that she absolutely would never choose her own life over her child’s. She seems to know that, if the situation were to actually occur, her feelings at the time might be different. Moreover, she refers to choosing her life over that of the fetus, but in her current situation, choosing the life of the fetus over hers is not an option. The unborn baby will die either way. These factors open up a considerable amount of doubt in my mind about whether Zoe would actually choose to die rather than abort in this instance. Because of that doubt, I would authorize the abortion and risk her hating me for the rest of her life. Better that than to have her death on my conscience.
Four things:
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My thought is that Wash believes that Zoe would choose to risk her life rather than abort the fetus, no matter what the doctors say, and that she would only consent to having the fetus removed if it were already dead. In other words, she would consider any action taken to remove a not-yet-viable fetus while it is still alive to be murder. However, she’s never actually said the words, “Washington, if I am ever close to death because of unanticipated problems in my pregnancy and am unable to make my wishes known, I am telling you know that I prefer to die myself rather than be saved by aborting a still-living baby.” Wash knows this because he knows her. To use a silly example, it’s like my wife answeringa question someone asked me the other day about whether I was going to go see VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER; knowing me, she knew I had no intention of going near that movie without me ever having to say so.
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In Washington’s place, I would be very tempted to authorize the abortion anyway, regardless of Zoe’s wishes. I’d rather my life were alive to hate me and divorce me than dead for me to bury and mourn. That position, however, is unethical, it seems to me. Which is not to sayI wouldn’t do it anyway.
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I won’t address the medical stuff because I don’t know enough about it to do so in a competent way. I’m not ignoring it, just leaving it alone.
Zoe is unable to speak for herself or make choinces, and has not specified that her husband cannot make decisions for her in that circumstance. She is not being forced against her will, she has no will at this point.
The husband has good reason to believe that Zoe would choose not to have the abortion, and he is forcing his judgment onto her no less than if he restrained her from an abortion when she did not want to carry a child to term.
I wouldn’t even hesitate or search for reasons. It would be MY decision and I would make it my way.
Were I Washington, I’d deal with that when she woke up. AFAIAC she doesn’t have the right to abandon Zach and Winnie.
Then, given this, I don’t even need to know the answer to the medical question. I will mourn her deeply, but I will inform the doctors of what her choice is.
Then I’d get ready for the stream of medical ethicists, hospital lawyers, clergy and physicians beating a path to her hospital room trying to talk me out of it. Short of a court order, however (which isn’t all that unlikely), my wife is about to die.
Oh yeah. I would also be so, so tempted to follow my own wishes instead of hers. This is something I struggle with in nursing school already. But bottom line, I feel that every competent adult has the right to determine their own health care, even if that choice directly leads to their death.
Fair enough.
I was actually trying to fit “a leaf on the wind” somewhere in my first reply, but it seemed to cheapen a really very good and serious Skaldthetical. 
Was she unconcious when she expressed her decision to have an abortion in your equivalent:rolleyes: case?
I vote to abort. She’ll get over it, and even if she hates me, I could not act against my beliefs and losing her for a stupid reason. I fully expect her not to terminate if she could, but then she’d be sticking by her beliefs. So since I’m the one deciding, I vote to abort
Sidenote: I can’t see a couple with mismatched views on abortion getting married and having children in the first place. Anyway…
I’m a woman, but yes I would have the fetus aborted if I were theoretically a lesbian with a girlfriend in the same situation (which would never happen because I don’t associate with anti-choicers, but hypothetically). I value the life of my partner above all else. Plus, we already have kids together. We can make more.
Better for her to be alive, pissed, and divorce me than for her to be dead.