As I thought it might, the Ethics Quiz about “The Ethicist’s” position that a nurse practitioner was obligated to help an unemployed, unmarried, 16-year-old high school drop-out get pregnant provoked a lot of discussion. Here is how the poll results on the issue are running:
And here is Arthur in Maine’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Quiz And Poll: The Nurse Practitioner’s Dilemma”:
Last week in Oklahoma, Ray Phillips fulfilled a promise to his sister Stacy, taking home from the hospital 5-pound Dottie Phillips, born prematurely in September, to become the newest member of his family. Stacy died last month of brain cancer, just three days after holding her infant daughter for the first and only time. Dottie was able to come into the world only because Stacy, 41, had made the choice to reject chemotherapy for her rapidly spreading cancer that was diagnosed after she learned that she was pregnant.
When life places one of us in a “Sophie’s Choice” dilemma like Stacy’s, no one has standing to question or challenge whether the ultimate choice is “right.” There is no right choice. Stacy was faced with deciding whether to sacrifice the unborn child she had never met, a child whom many in America choose to regard as a neither a life or a being with any individual rights, but rather only as an ephemeral potentiality made of cells, similar to a pay-off at the races or a stock dividend. Even those who take the opposite view, that Dottie was a human life even at the earliest stages of her development in the womb, would never assert that a mother would be wrong to choose life-saving cancer treatments for herself at the risk of the unborn child. In such a case the right to choose is nearly unanimously accepted, and it is the hardest choice of all. Continue reading
Bambi's mother would understand.
Animal ethics are not a major topic here, in part because there is continuing scientific controversy over whether animals are capable of ethical impulses. The pros seem to have the upper hand over the cons, however, due to observations of altruistic conduct exhibited by primates in the wild and other evidence. How a wild deer, at last report standing guard over a widowed goose and her brood at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, NY, fits into the debate is for others to decide, but it’s an inspiring tale.
A mother goose has lost her mate (geese bond for life, it seems) and now must tend to her nest in the cemetery, which is home to many varieties of wildlife. She spends the day sheltering her eggs inside an empty urn. The job of her deceased mate was to guard the home, and discourage predators, which, as you know if you have ever had a run-in with a goose (as I have), he would have been very capable of doing. Without a guardian, the prospects for the future goslings are not good
An adult deer, however, has come to the rescue and had assumed the role of protector. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 
Yikes. I know you hold Appiah in high regard, and your previous posts about his work make clear why. But I agree with you – he’s very much in the wrong on this one.
Many years ago, I worked in a group home for adjudicated teenagers. We had several 15 and 16 year old girls who, like the girl in question, actually wanted to become pregnant (thank God none of them managed to achieve this goal on our watch).
I recognize that my sample size is small enough that this is nothing more than anecdotal – but as far as I’m concerned, well-adjusted 16-year-old girls may adore babies and kids but understand that now’s not the time. To desire pregnancy at that age requires one or more underlying pathologies. Continue reading →