Friday, June 03, 2011
Jewish Ethics, Skewish Ethics
(2)
(Guess I should always assume that every new post defaults to that smaller font.)
I'm a long-time Today Show watcher as you may know, and today's Today Show had a new 'segment' called, 'Today's Good News.' This one was about a young girl who developed Leukemia at an early age and needed a bone marrow transplant. No donor could be found. The distraught parents decided to try and make another little girl who could be a suitable donor. The father had to have a vasectomy reversed first, then they both 'got to work.' Nine months later (presumably) the result was delivered in the form of another little girl. DNA tests produced the good news that this new little yum-yum was a suitable donor! Alright! (Back from the fridge with beer #4. I just opened Kootch's door and emitted a huge burp. She laughed.) So the parents instructed the medical staff to do the transplant. It worked, and both sisters are now living with the same (more or less) bone marrow. I vaguely remember seeing something like that about ten years ago.
But what struck me today as I watched the show was the information that, at the time, the parents were widely regarded to be acting unethically. The ethical question apparently revolved around the matter of 'consent:' The newborn girl could not give her consent to have her bone marrow extracted. Some even argued that it was unethical even to have conceived her! Medical 'Ethicists?'
It seems to me that this is an example of the rapid evolution currently at work in our modern society: it is 'dawning on American Medicine' that 'infants cannot give consent.' Some few medical ethicists are even suggesting that male infants cannot give consent to be sexually mutilated!
Where will it all end!?
(Guess I should always assume that every new post defaults to that smaller font.)
I'm a long-time Today Show watcher as you may know, and today's Today Show had a new 'segment' called, 'Today's Good News.' This one was about a young girl who developed Leukemia at an early age and needed a bone marrow transplant. No donor could be found. The distraught parents decided to try and make another little girl who could be a suitable donor. The father had to have a vasectomy reversed first, then they both 'got to work.' Nine months later (presumably) the result was delivered in the form of another little girl. DNA tests produced the good news that this new little yum-yum was a suitable donor! Alright! (Back from the fridge with beer #4. I just opened Kootch's door and emitted a huge burp. She laughed.) So the parents instructed the medical staff to do the transplant. It worked, and both sisters are now living with the same (more or less) bone marrow. I vaguely remember seeing something like that about ten years ago.
But what struck me today as I watched the show was the information that, at the time, the parents were widely regarded to be acting unethically. The ethical question apparently revolved around the matter of 'consent:' The newborn girl could not give her consent to have her bone marrow extracted. Some even argued that it was unethical even to have conceived her! Medical 'Ethicists?'
It seems to me that this is an example of the rapid evolution currently at work in our modern society: it is 'dawning on American Medicine' that 'infants cannot give consent.' Some few medical ethicists are even suggesting that male infants cannot give consent to be sexually mutilated!
Where will it all end!?
