2. TOPICS
An Infant with No Prospects: Baby Theresa
An Infant with Uncertain Prospects: Jody & Mary
A Child with No Further Prospects: Tracy Latimer
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3. Anencephaly
A genetic disorder in which the newborn
lacks a major part of the brain
a serious birth defect in which a baby
is born without parts of the brain and
skull.
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4. Can anencephalic baby survive?
Anencephaly is a fatal condition. Most fetuses with anencephaly pass
away before birth, and the pregnancy ends in miscarriage. Babies
born with anencephaly die within a few hours, days or weeks.
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6. FACTS:
• Theresa was born with anencephaly
• Most with this defect are born stillbirth or die within the first weeks
• The parents of Theresa wanted to donate her organs to help other
children who needs transplants.
• However, in order to do this they could not wait until Theresa’s heart
stopped beating because if they did the organs would deteriorate
and would not be any help to other children
• Should Theresa’s life be sacrificed to help other children?
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7. Case 1
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For Transplant:
The benefits Argument:
Transplanting Theresa’s
organs will benefit many
other children and cause
no “harm” to anyone.
It will cause no harm
because Theresa is not
conscious, will never be
conscious and she will
eventually die in a few
days
Against Transplant:
Don’t use others as
means only
Killing or taking a life is
always wrong even if the
person is going to die
anyways and even if doing
so would save many other
lives.
8. Conjoined twins
Conjoined twins are two babies who are born
physically connected to each other. Conjoined
twins develop when an early embryo only partially
separates to form two individuals. Although two
babies develop from this embryo, they remain
physically connected — most often at the chest,
abdomen or pelvis.
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10. FACTS:
• Jodie and Mary are conjoined twin embryos
• They were joined at the lower abdomen. The spines were fused, and they
only have one heart and one set of lungs
• If the parents did nothing, both would die. However, if they separate them,
the Mary would die and Jodie would survive
• The parents were very catholic and believed they should not interfere; they
should allow God’s design to take its course.
• The hospital and the doctors believed the twins should be separated so at
least Jodie could survive.
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11. Case 2: Should the twins be
separated?
This case has two distinct ethical issues:
1. Who should decide the fate of Jodie and Mary, the parents or the
doctors?
2. What is the ethically right thing to do?
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12. Case 2: Arguments
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Don’t separate:
All life is precious and it is
always wrong to take a
human life, even if it is
with the purpose of saving
another human life
Both Mary and Jodie have
the same right to life and
no one can take that from
them.
Separate:
Benefits Argument
We have a moral
obligation, a moral duty, to
save a human life if we
can do so.
Technically, the doctors
are not killing Mary they
are simply separating the
twins and letting nature
take its course
13. Cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of disorders
that affect a person's ability to move and
maintain balance and posture. CP is the
most common motor disability in childhood.
Cerebral means having to do with the brain.
Palsy means weakness or problems with
using the muscles.
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15. FACTS:
• Tracy was a 12- year old victim of cerebral palsy.
• She weighed less than 40 pounds and was functioning at the level
of a three month-old baby
• Tracy’s father committed euthanasia. She had her inhale fumes
until she died
• Tracy’s father was sentenced to only one year in prison and later the
Supreme Court in Canada raised it to the mandatory 10 years
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16. Case 3: Arguments
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For euthanasia:
A version of the benefits
argument: Tracy had no real
potential to live a “productive
life” and was in intense pain
Tracy had no quality of life and
there existed no potential for
any improvement of her
condition: she was destined to
rot away in this terrible and
painful condition
Against Euthanasia:
For slippery slope: If we allow Tracy’s
father to get way with killing his
daughter then someone else will do it
for a less severe illness and pretty
soon father’s will be killing their
children because they have severe
cold!
This “mercy killing” is an act of
discrimination against handicapped
person and it puts all handicapped
people at risk of similar discrimination
17. MORAL CASES
1. Ethical positions must be supported by rational arguments.
(justification or evidence)
2. The rational argumentation is the methodology used in ethics
3. That our first intuitions or what our emotions might indicate is right
might turn out to be wrong.
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19. Assessing Arguments:
• Facts
• Conceptual issues
• Moral Principles
• We need to separate factual issues from conceptual and values
issues
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The purpose of analyzing and reflecting on these three moral cases is to demonstrate that several things
As a result of the 3, we need to separate our emotions and biases from reason, and we should be open to arguments from all perspective
Rationality: moral judgement should be supported by good reasons (arguments)
Impartiality: the interests and rights of all involved should be considered.
For instance in discussing abortion there are relevant issues concerning the gestation of the fetus (factual issues), the notion of what makes up a person (conceptual issue) and whether or not it is permissible to kill an innocent person (value issue)
