Your focus for this assignment is case 1, "The Concert." Evaluate it in light of the theories we have discussed. As for the other cases, you should simply be prepared to discuss them in small groups.
1. The Concert: It happened after a concert. Sixteen year old Mary Pluski had gone with three of her friends to see Green Day in concert. After the concert, which was attended by some 10,000 people, Mary got separated from the other three girls. She decided that the best thing to do was to meet them at the car.
But when Mary got to the eight-story parking building, she realized she wasn’t sure which level they had parked on. She thought it might be somewhere in the middle so she started looking on the fourth floor. While she was walking down the aisles of cars, two men in their early twenties, one white and the other black, stopped her and asked if she was having some kind of trouble.
Mary explained the situation to them, and one of the men suggested that they get his car and drive around inside the parking building. Mary hesitated, but both seemed so polite and genuinely concerned to help that she decided to go with them.
Once they were in the car, however, the situation changed. They drove out of the building and towards the south side. Mary pleaded with them to let her out of the car, but they refused. They threatened her with violence if she called for help or tried to escape from the car. Then some seven miles from the auditorium, they driver stopped the car in a dark area behind a vacant building. Mary was then raped by both men.
Mary was treated at the AllenworthHospital and released into the custody of her parents. She was so distressed by the events that she simply couldn’t bring herself to tell the police everything that happened. She told them simply that she was kidnapped, threatened, and that she managed to escape. She did go ahead and file a complaint with the police about the abduction, but her troubles were not yet over. Two weeks after she missed her menstrual period, tests showed that Mary was pregnant. She then told her parents and doctor about the full events of that day.
“How do you feel about having this child?” asked Sarah Reuben, the Pluski family physician.
“I hate the idea,” Mary said. “I feel guilty about it, though. I mean, it’s not the child’s fault.”
“Let me ask you a delicate question,” said Dr. Ruben. “I know from what you have told me before that you and your boyfriend have been having sex. Can you be sure that this pregnancy is not really the result of that?”
Mary shook her head. “Not really. Jeff always uses a condom, but I know that doesn’t give a hundred percent guarantee. Recently, it even slipped off when we were having sex.”
“Well now. Does it make any difference to you who the father might be, so far as a decision about terminating the pregnancy is concerned?”
“If I were sure that it was Jeff, I guess the problem would be even harder,” Mary said.
“There are some tests we can use to give us that information,” Dr. Ruben said. “But that would mean waiting for the embryo to develop into a fetus. It would be easier and safer to terminate the pregnancy now.”
What should Mary do? Justify your answer by appealing to one or more of the various theories and positions we have discussed.
2. Cystic Fibrosis. Cystic fibrosis is a serious and potentially fatal inherited disease, present from birth, and characterized by a tendency for chronic lung infections and an inability to absorb fats and other nutrients from food. With modern medical treatment, about two-thirds of those having this disease survive into adult life. But few ever achieve perfect health.
It is now possible to identify embryos having this disease using pre-implantation diagnosis, a new technique pioneered at the HammersmithHospital in London for families at risk of cystic fibrosis. The technique involves taking eggs from the mother, fertilizing them in vitro with the husband’s sperm, and incubating them for three days, still outside the body, until they form a cluster of eight cells. At this point, they are technically embryos with the full human genetic code, and according to the standard pro-life view, full-fledged human beings with a right to life.
The next step in the technique is to remove one cell from each embryo and test it for the disease gene of cystic fibrosis. Amazingly enough, this removal of one-eighth of the mass of the embryo has no effect on its future development into a human being. If the disease gene is present in the embryo, however, the practice is to discard the embryo, to kill it. Once a healthy embryo is found, it is re-implanted into the mother, so that it will develop into a baby without cystic fibrosis.
Are the eight-cell embryos human beings with a right to life? Why or why not? If they are human beings, is it morally wrong to kill them, even though they have cystic fibrosis? Explain your answer.
3. Frozen Embryos. (Reported in The New York Times, September 22, 1989.) Mary Sue Davis, age 29, and her husband Junior Davis wanted to have children, but after five tubal pregnancies, it seemed that a normal pregnancy was out of the question. The couple decided to try in vitro fertilization. This process involves extracting eggs from the woman, mixing them with sperm from the father in a laboratory and then having the fertilized eggs, the embryos, implanted in the womb. Mary Sue produced nine eggs which were then fertilized. Two were implanted, a process that can caused much discomfort and pain, but no pregnancy resulted. The remaining seven eggs were frozen for future use. The couple then decided to divorce. Mary Sue claimed the frozen embryos as her own and expressed her intention to implant them in her body despite her husband’s objections. She petitioned the court in Maryville, Tennessee, and Circuit Judge W. Dale Young ruled that the embryos are not property, but full-fledged persons with a right to life because, he said, “human life begins at conception.” The judge said that Mary Sue could have temporary custody of the frozen embryos for the purpose of having them implanted in her womb. Child support, visitation rights, and final custody will be decided if one of the embryos results in a birth, he said.
This case raises a number of difficult questions: Are frozen embryos full-fledged persons with a right to life? If so, does Mary Sue have a moral obligation to implant all of them? If children are born, does the father have a moral obligation to support all of them, even though he did not consent to their birth? Does the father have any rights at all in such cases? Carefully explain your answers.
4. A Cocaine Addict. Sally Miller is a twenty-five-year-old woman who is a cocaine addict, a heavy smoker, and a part-time shoplifter (in order support her drug habit). She becomes pregnant after having sex with the man who supplies her with drugs. She does not want the baby. It will be born addicted to cocaine, and caring for such a baby will be very difficult. Furthermore, Sally has no interest in pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. She decides to get an abortion, but before she has a chance to get one, she is arrested for stealing watches from a jewelry store. While in jail awaiting sentences one of the doctors treating her for drug withdrawal notices that she is pregnant. The doctor advises Sally to stop smoking, but Sally refuses, saying that she has a right to smoke if she wants to, particularly when she is craving cocaine. The doctor goes to court, and gets a court order stipulating that Sally cannot smoke or take illegal drugs, that she must remain in prison until the baby is born, and that after the baby is born she will be tried on the shoplifting charge. In the court order, the pro-life judge states that Sally’s behavior is a serious threat to the life and health of the fetus, and if she is not imprisoned she will seriously threaten the life and heath of the unborn child.
Do the rights of the fetus outweigh Sally’s rights in this case? Suppose that Sally is merely a heavy drinker? Should she be forced to stop drinking while she is pregnant? Explain your answers.
5. An AIDS Baby. Sara is married and has two healthy children, ages 5 and 8. She is busy with her career as a lawyer and does not want any more children, but she gets pregnant again. At first she feels willing to have the baby, but after tests she learns she is infected with the HIV virus. Who gave her AIDS? She is reasonably sure it was not her husband. She strongly suspects a young man who worked for her as a legal secretary at the law firm. She had a brief and unsatisfactory affair with the young man, but then broke it off when she discovered he was using heroin. She also suspects that this young man is the one who made her pregnant using a defective condom. She had not worried about AIDS until she became pregnant but then decided to be tested as a precautionary measure. Her doctor informs her that the baby is infected with the HIV virus too.
Should Sara get an abortion? Why or why not?