Trisomy 18 - Case Study

        During my friend Dee’s pregnancy her child Charlie was diagnosed with Trisomy 18. The doctors encouraged her to abort her child. Morally she could not stand the thought of abortion. It goes against her religion, and the basic principles brought on to her by the people in her surrounding community. She felt distraught as a new mother to be faced with such a hard decision without having any knowledge of the subject other than what she was told by the doctors. Her and her husband Mack decided not to abort the child, and the child’s life was over at an early age.

The emotional effect on Dee was quite strong. Dee really blamed herself for a while. She though that it was somehow her doing that lead her child into the terrible diagnosis that he had received. All of her friends and family came to encourage her to try to have another child. We offered our condolences, and tried to soothe her aching heart over the loss of her child.

        I personally believe that even in early stages an embryo is a life. I believe that it has brainwaves, and that it has a heartbeat. I believe that a life is a life no matter how small, and that it should be left in God’s hands to take care of it. I think that others are wrong when they state that it is not a life until is born. I strongly disagree with that statement.

        I think the best ethical theory that applies to this problem is the Doctrine of Double Effect. The Doctrine of Double Effect breaks down into four major conditions. The first condition is the nature-of-the-act condition. It states that the action must either morally good or indifferent. The second condition is the means-end condition. It states that the bad effect must not be the means by which one achieves the good effect. The third condition is the right-intention condition. It states that the intention must be achieving a good effect leaving the bad effect being an unintended side effect. Finally the fourth condition is the proportionality condition. The proportionality condition states that the good effect must be at least equivalent in importance to the bad effect. According to the ethical problem at hand I believe that the Doctrine of Double Effect is the best ethical theory to come up with a solution.

                The solution to the problem generated by the Doctrine of Double Effect is that having the abortion was not the right choice. Both ethically and morally Dee’s decision to give the child a chance at life was correct. I think this is a perfect theory to use in the current situation. I have four reasons why I think that this is a good theory are as follows. One, the effect of an abortion is a negative or evil effect, and cannot be processed as morally good or indifferent. You are basically killing an innocent person by having an abortion. Two, by having an abortion Dee would have had to kill in order to insure her safety, and perhaps her sanity. Having the abortion would have been achieving an effect that is deemed good. For example, the child would have had a hard life and some feel that it would have been best for it to be ended prematurely. Three, the fact that Dee chose to keep the baby instead of aborting it satisfies the idea that the bad effect needed to be a side effect of the good effect. Dee did not intend for her child to die, nor did she want her child to die. Finally, I believe that Dee allowing her child to live and die naturally was the best course of action in order to preserve her moral high ground and her own personal ethical beliefs. The Doctrine of Double Effect fits this situation perfectly, and I think that she followed the best course of action in order to ensure the best chance at life for her child.

        Someone might choose to argue with Dee’s decision by stating that abortion in the right sense is ethical. The first argument that comes to mind would be that if the child had lived, what type of person would allow a child to be born, and knowingly allow another human being to live a life like that. For example, some people frown upon others for allowing their children to be born with Down syndrome. Another argument that comes to mind would be that they might try to say that Dee, in essence, has let something valuable go to waste. For example, a person might say that it would have been more ethical to abort the child in order to harvest its stem cells. These arguments would prove to be invalid, making the person who stated them appear flawed.

        Firstly, I feel the same way Dee feels about abortion. As I have stated before, I feel that abortion is murder. The bible says that killing a person is a sin, therefore abortion in itself is a sin. I worry about the miseducation of people who try to defend abortion. It seems that they have been misguided by their peers about what to think of it. For example, they might think that it is okay to abort a child if the child would be in some way mentally unfit to live, or provide for themselves. I feel that someone has no right to decide such matters. They themselves must do all that they can to help provide for that child. Even if the child is handicapped in some way. Most of the time one cannot tell that the child is going to be handicapped. For example, a person who has ALS may not know that they have it until they are at a later stage in life. Another example of this would be if the person has Multiple Sclerosis. That disease, like ALS, does not show up until the latter stages of life for a person. People are diagnosed with Down syndrome in the womb. It is known as Trisomy 21. There is absolutely no way possible that Dee’s child would have gotten that according to the diagnosis of Trisomy 18. They are two completely different things, and the child would not have had Down syndrome if it had survived. Unlike Down syndrome, which also is caused by an extra chromosome, the developmental issues caused by Trisomy 18 are associated with more medical complications that are more potentially life-threatening in the early months and years of life (What is Trisomy 18, 2015). There is no reason to abort an innocent human being because of a condition that will alter their way of life, when life is still livable by that person.