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WEEK 3 ACTIVITY: CASE STUDY #2
In August 2000, a young woman from Gozo, an island south of Italy, discovered that she
was carrying conjoined twins. Knowing that health-care facilities on Gozo
were inadequate to deal with the complications of such a birth, she and her husband
went to St. Mary’s Hospital in Manchester, England, to have the babies delivered.
The infants, known as Mary and Jodie, were joined at the lower abdomen. Their spines
were fused, and they had one heart and one pair of lungs between them. Jodie, the
stronger one, was providing blood for her sister.
No one knows how many sets of conjoined twins are born each year, but the number has
been estimated at 200. Most die shortly after birth, but some conjoined twins do well.
They grow to adulthood and marry and have children themselves. But the outlook for
Mary and Jodie was grim. The doctors said that without intervention the girls would die
within six months. The only hope was an operation to separate them. This would save
Jodie, but Mary would die immediately.
The parents, who were devout Catholics, refused permission for the operation on
the grounds that it would hasten Mary’s death. “We believe that nature should
take its course,” they said. “if it is God’s will that both our children should not survive,
then so be it.” The hospital, hoping to save at least of the infant, petitioned the courts for
permission to separate them over the parent’s objections. The court granted
permission, and the operation was performed. As expected, Jodie lived and Mary died.
Questions:
1. Who should make the decision from the question of what the decision should
be?
It's difficult to say who should make the decision because it's a complicated issue of
ethics and morality. I felt terrible for the parents who were in
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tremendous suffering as a result of their situation. Looking from both sides of the
situation, Jodie is far more powerful than Mary, and Mary's life is nearly entirely
dependent on her sister; if they both live, one of them will die. Personally, I think
the most difficult choice here is whether we should kill the one who is still alive or let
both of them die. This is a complicated case that necessitates a firm grasp of morality
and ethics. In this scenario, the parents are devoted Catholics, and their morality and
ethical standard include God's law; the parents believe in God's law, whereas the
Professional believes in their own ethical standard based on their professional ethics
as doctors and judges. The physicians simply want Jodie to survive to extend her life
because it is a doctor's oath to save lives no matter how difficult the circumstance is. Let
the parents decide, in my opinion, because their children are their responsibility
regardless of what happens, and they must decide what is best for them or their
children. I understand that God works in mysterious ways, and that he used this event
to educate us about how to judge difficult things. Thus, it should be the parents that will
decide about the matter because they have the control or right to decide on what is good
and bad for their children and they are responsible in taking care of the them.
2. Would it be right or wrong, in these circumstances, to separate the twins?
It is unethically and morally inappropriate in the eyes of those who believe in God's
rules because they feel that murdering innocent life is a major sin and that if God wills
it, then let it be, just like the parents of the twins. However, from the standpoint of
specialists, such as doctors and lawyers. They are more concerned with the
preservation of life, or the preservation of Jodie's life, since they fear that if they
are not separated, their condition will hurt them and ultimately kill them. As a
Christian, I find it difficult to argue that allowing Jodie to live is wrong, because it is
also in our best interests to save Mary's life. But, without being religiously biased, I
will allow the attorneys to decide because
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it is also Jodie's right to live, but ultimately, it is up to their parents' decision;
unfortunately, the laws are the ones who decide. There is nothing wrong in separating
the twins, in fact, it is even better to separate them because there is still a chance that
one of them will live. It just looks wrong because they didn’t let the parents to decide if
they will allow to separate the twins. The hospital decided to ask the courts for
approval to separate the twins even though the parents already decided that they
didn’t want to.
