consistency?

[cellio]

For the last few days there has been a story in the news about a baby that was born with two heads (twins gone wrong). Or, more precisely, about the surgery that was being done to remove one of them. Some of the reported facts got me to wondering about something.

The second head had brain activity. (I understood it to be activity independent of the other brain.) The additional head had eyes, a mouth, and other features that moved and apparently reacted to environment. If the head remained it was certainly going to become a serious hardship for the child, both physically and mentally. It was not clear to me that its presence was directly life-threatening.

So, the doctors removed an entity that was developed enough to have a working brain and body parts, which was infringing on a host entity through no fault of its own, to preserve the health but not necessarily the life of said host.

Now, I have absolutely no problem with that decision. But I wonder how those who are anti-abortion see it. I did not hear of any protests outside the hospital, and I would be somewhat surprised if a significant number of anti-abortion folks actually objected to this surgery. You'd have to be pretty hard-hearted to object to this, I think.

But I wonder about the reasoning. What are the salient differences between this case and abortion that make the former acceptable and the latter not? Is it just that a suffering child tugs on the heart-strings more than a suffering adult? Or is there a real difference? The analogous abortion case would seem to be an unintended, risky pregnancy resulting in a fetus with a serious not-immediately-fatal defect, like Down's. While many anti-abortion people make exceptions for cases like that, many others do not. They're the ones I'm curious about.

Comments

[alice-curiouser.livejournal.com]

Interesting question - certainly the second head was as much of a lifeform as a fetus.... unless your definition of "living" is having a set of breathing lungs - in which case the objections to early-term abortion wouldn't make sense, since I don't think fetuses (feti?) develop lungs right away. Having a functioning heart, maybe? Still, I think the same argument re: early-term fetuses would apply. Really, an early fetus is nothing more than a blob of cells, much LESS, if anything, than the second head. The only other thing I could think of, is that the head's "life" was sacrificed to possibly save the whole baby. But even THAT doesn't make sense, as some anti-abortion activists don't think it's right even to spare a life of the mother or siblings (in the case of multiple births). It's an interesting question, indeed.

My own opinion: I am pro-choice about abortion, though I can't honestly see myself ever having one. I believe that women should have that right, and I believe that children have the right to NOT be born to crack-heads, hookers, poverty, or unloving parents. However, if -G-d forbid - because I can't tell you how much the thought horrifies me - I ever had a baby like that, I would never consider NOT having the operation.

Re:

[cellio]

Exactly. If it is ok to remove something that has developed to the point of having independent brain activity, then surely it is permitted to remove something that has not even progressed that far -- except that for some people that isn't acceptable. So there must be some other differentiating factor, else the positions are inconsistent.