Anencephalic Babies

Hard situations make us think of the question is it right or wrong.  This question makes us think of all the possiblities that could happen on either side of the situation.  As if I do this, this will happen but if I do that this will happen. In my case study the hard situation is about if you should abort a baby,donate the organs of anencephalic babies or not do anything and let them live their lives.

The backround of the case is that anencephalic babies are born without a cerebrum or cerebellum but they do have a brain stem which allows them to breathe and allows their hearts to beat.  This means that the babies cannot see, hear, or feel anything which is said that they will never achieve the "personhood." Most babies do not live to be more than about ten days old except in some special cases.  There is about a total of 1000 anencephalic babies born each year.  Most women abort their babies, and the remaining five percent that are kept, fifty-five percent are born stillborn.  The rest of the them are to be said "born dieing."  Some of the parents want to donate their babies organs, but the doctors need to harvest the organs right away for them to be able to use them.  Also organs can't be removed from living humans so they must kell the baby to do so. 

There are three main ways to handle anencephalic babies.  One way is abortion, since anencephalic babies can be diagnosed prenatally the parents put abortion as one of their options, which sadly is 95 percent of people.  Then the remaining 5 percent that will have the baby but it will either be stillborn or live with the condition.  The parents that have the babies that live with the condition can either choose to let the baby live as long as possible or will choose to donate the organs. 

In the case of Baby Theresa the parents wanted to donate her organs, but the courts would not declare her dead.  She lived for a total of ten days and when she died her organs could no longer be transplanted.  In another case of Baby K the mother fought against the hospital, the doctors, and even the baby's father to keep the anencephalic Baby K alive.  The mother was motivated by a strong religious convicton and that God should decide how long the baby would live.  Baby K left the hospital when she was seven weeks old and from there she was moved into a nursing home.  Everytime she stopped breathing her mother would rush her to the hospital to be resuscitated.  Her medical bill ran up to $500,000 and she did live for two and a half years, but died of a heart attack. 

For this case the main question to be answered is if this was you what would you do in this situation?  If this was me I don't know exactly what I would do, but if you where to ask me today about it I would have the baby and if it were to stay alive I would donate the organs.  I'm a firm believer in donating just because I feel that I know that my baby won't survive at all, but if I give the organs up to another family that they can have their baby survive because they just need one organ, that would make me feel like my baby had a purpose in its short life. 

So its your choice to decide if this was you what would you do?

Kevorkian

When learning about bio ethics and studying the Dr. Death case I found out a lot about ethics.  The way that they are looked at and can go both ways.  In the Jack Kevorkian case it's all about should people be able to choose when they want to die.  Theres people that say yes and others that say no.  In this case Dr. Death helped with 130 sucides and was tried four times in court.  His cases are known internationally because of the ethics behind the case.