This document discusses various types of congenital deformities present at birth including genetic deformities passed down from parents' genes and non-hereditary deformities caused by damage during fetal development. Specific deformities mentioned include Down syndrome, spina bifida, hydrocephalus, anencephaly, and esophageal atresia. The document also examines different ethical perspectives on whether doctors and nurses should condone letting malformed infants die or be killed mercifully, including views from the Roman Catholic Church, Kantian principles, and philosophers Ross and Fletcher.

1. THE MORAL ISSUE OF
JOFRED M. MARTINEZ, RN
CHAPTER 10

2. THE MORAL ISSUE OF
JOFRED M. MARTINEZ, RN
CHAPTER 10

3. These are defects, malformations, or abnormalities of
a child which are present at birth.
Several causes of congenital deformities stem from:
• radiation
• drugs
• chemicals
• nutritional deficiencies
• biological disease agents

5. GENETIC DEFORMITIES
These are hereditary, they are the outcome of the
genetic information of the child.
CONGENITAL DEFORMITIES
These are defects or malformations present at birth;
they are nonhereditary insofar as they are not due to
the genetic material but to some physical damage
during fetal development.

6. The affected newborn has a twenty-first triple rather
that twenty-first pair of chromosomes
The child affected with Down’s syndrome is born
retarded and with various physical deformities:
a broad skull, a large tongue and upward
slant of eyelids.

11. The newborn with this type of deformity has the following
features:
• opening in the spine
• a bulging sac from the protrusion of the membrane
covering of the spinal cord
• spinal fluid and nerve tissue contained in the
swelling protuberance
• paralysis below the waist
• no control of bladder and bowel movements

16. It is a defective condition characterized by the
accumulation of fluid within the ventricles or between
the membranes of the brain.
Brain damage follows from the pressure build-up
from the fluid that cannot escape, resulting in the
death of the child.

20. In this deformity, the brain is partially or almost totally
absent. Some bones of the skull are not completely
formed, thus leaving an opening through which the
brain material swells out forming a sac or bag.
There seems to be no hope for improvement for this
birth defect through technological means at present.

23. An atresia is the closing or blockage of a normal canal
or opening. This refers to the closing of the
esophagus, the muscular tube has no opening
through which milk or food may reach the stomach..

25. An atresia is the closing or blockage of a normal canal
or opening. This refers to the closing of the
esophagus, the muscular tube has no opening
through which milk or food may reach the stomach..

27. Committed to promote the good and to avoid
evil, can doctors and nurses condone the
death of such a child?

28. ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
Even the most terribly malformed baby is a
human person, so its right to life must be
respected and safeguarded.

29. KANTIAN PRINCIPLES
A malformed baby is a person, then it possesses an
inherent dignity and worth. But aside from being
defective, it lacks the capacity to reason and to
express its will.

30. ROSS ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
Which prima facie duty is more stringent, the duty to
have a deformed baby be operated on for a spina
bifida condition, the cost of which is tremendous and
burdensome to the family; or the duty to just let the
malformed child die in a quiet painless way?

31. JOSEPH FLETCHER
He does not favor the expulsion of a terribly
malformed fetus and the decision to terminate a
“subhuman life in extremis” and also endorses the
merciful and painless killing of horribly deformed
babies and terminally ill patients.

32. Certain defects are necessary for the existence of
individuality.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe