The ABC reported today that a brain dead woman in Portugal gave birth to a healthy baby. The woman was declared dead on 20 February this year.
What a complicated issue. A terrible decision for family to have to make, and no doubt bitter sweet joy upon the successful delivery of a healthy baby. But what are we to make of the decision to keep a woman as an incubator for a baby?
Many might claim that a pregnant woman would want her baby to survive. This is a widely held understanding of ‘a mother’s sacrifice’. It is offered as justification for what might otherwise be considered a gross invasion of human dignity: not allowing a person to die, and using a human as a means to an end, that end being the birth of a baby. Neither of these propositions is uncomplicated in itself. But before reaching this conclusion, I think that there are still a number of unasked questions that should be exposed before suggesting that the conclusion is correct. Is this sacrifice too great?
katgallow 