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.

[amergina.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely sure the condition wasn't fatal. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the second head was growing at a more rapid rate than the first.

ah, here we go: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/08/whedz08.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/02/08/ixworld.html

Before the operation, doctors had said that it was risky but necessary. "The head on top is growing faster than the lower one," said Dr Jorge Lazareff, the head of paediatric neurosurgery at the University of California's Mattel Children's Hospital, who led the team. "If we don't operate, the child would barely be able to lift her head at three months old."

...

Parasitic heads draw away vital nutrients and can become so heavy that the victims are unable to move.

...

Dr Alan Cameron, a consultant obstetrician and a specialist in foetal development at the Queen Mother's Hospital in Glasgow, said that it was wrong to consider the parasitic head as another living person.

"There would have been absolutely no chance whatsoever of the second head having consciousness in any way because the brain would not have been developed enough," he said.

The eyes and mouth of the second head were poorly formed and non-functioning and it would have relied on the fully formed baby for all of its oxygen and nutrients.

Now, I'm all for a woman's choice, just so you know.

I *think* the idea with anti-abortion people is that the potential of a fetus growing into a fully formed human being should not be interrupted by unnatural causes. Like removing the fetus surgically.

In the case of the second head... it wasn't going to grow into a human. It would always be a partially formed second head. Without the fully formed first head, the second would cease to function as it was very underdeveloped.

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

It was not clear to me that its presence was directly life-threatening.

The second head would have prevented the complete baby's brain from growing. That sounds life-threatening to me. The extra load on the heart also would have probably been a problem.

Have you read the complete text of the court decision in the Mary/Jodie case? The judge explored a lot of moral issues in surprising depth, while making it clear that his actual decision was rooted as strongly as possible in the law.

BTW, people who work in the education of those with Down's Syndrome are almost uniformly appalled that Down's fetuses are routinely aborted.

Jessie Helms, for all his faults, had the treatment of those with Down's Syndrome as one of his pet causes, and personally adopted several such kids (I believe 6) who had been abandoned by their mothers at birth.