I maintain my argument that the rest of the states should adopt pregnancies clauses in the carrying out of living wills in order for the government to protect its interests in the fetus. I will support this argument by addressing the counterarguments that have been posed throughout the week. Jaime argues that these clauses should be applied to people regardless of gender through the use of the Equal Rights Amendment. The Amendment would act as an umbrella for the “state to preserve the life of [any] terminal patient (thereby disregarding his/her living will), [in] a situation in which the terminal individual possesses healthy, harvestable organs that can be used to improve, extend, or save (preserve) the life of another patient.” So following this argument Jaime and I agree, as long as the fetus falls under the protection of this umbrella of state protection. As I have stated, the life of the terminal individual is over and therefore it is most practical and ethical to maintain the potential life.
Mara argues that it is a person’s right to have her living will upheld under any circumstance, pregnant or otherwise, her word should be the ultimate authority. She goes on to argue that the state should not have a legitimate concern in pregnant women because it is not concerned with the preservation of other bodies. She is in effect pointing out the ‘hypocrisy’ of only dismissing the living will in the case of pregnant women. Similar seated situations should be handled similarly. This however is not a similar situation. Mara proposes that using bodies for science would be the same as using the pregnant woman’s body to maintain the life of the fetus, but there is no life that is directly helped with the former. There is an argument to be made that many lives would be helped with the scientific research that could result from the research that would be done but I’m unsure about the available time and money there is to follow through on this proposition. In sustaining the life of the pregnant woman there is a direct life that is saved, that of her fetus, and that is unquestionable.
I also find Mara’s statement about dignity relevant to strengthen my argument. She is likely correct in assuming that it is important to most people that their bodies are handled with care and according to their wishes after they have died. This however is a wish. The pregnant woman is just a body at this point and is unaware of what is happening. Doctors would of course be treating her body carefully because they are trying to sustain the life of the fetus inside, and after it is born the body of the woman will continue to be treated in a dignified manner and buried or cremated according to her desire. The human attachment to the body after the ‘person’ is gone should be disregarded for a short period of time in order to create a new life.
Mara also argues that this preservation of life is an act of discrimination by the state “based on an ASSUMPTION that [the pregnant woman] is not intelligent enough to know what she was doing.” This is not an assumption about intelligence. The state would be preserving the lives of all pregnant women, those with high IQs or comprehension and those with minimal levels of both. My claim is that her decision may have been based on incomplete information. There is a potentiality that she was not given all of her options or had been given access to all the sources of information available. The state’s interest here is in saving a life, not degrading one, and is making no assumptions about a woman’s intelligence through this action.
Mara goes on to state that “through our many class discussions it has been concluded that the state should not withhold rights based on the idea that someone might regret something. The state should also not make decisions for pregnant women because they possibly did not know what they were taking about when they expressed what they wanted.” Yes, class discussions have yielded conclusions like these, at least from those who have been vocal about our opinions. However our class does not determine the proper role of the state and in reality the state does play an inside role in preventing such regret. This is evident in the implementation of 24 hour waiting periods for abortion. The precedent is with the state trying to prevent regret. Martin’s point ties in nicely here as well, he states that if my “argument could be made [by] explaining why laws should be without the use of precedent [he] would be more convinced.”
Looking at precedent is important. If we threw out precedent and merely acted how we thought to be moral there would be chaos. We would soon be living in a state of anarchy completely dictated by individual will. Without precedent, whose morality should be followed? Who would determine what morality is? To what extent should the determined morality be followed? Straying from precedent into the realm of personal (transmitted into public) morality is extremely dangerous in a world of conflicting views of ‘how the world should be’.
Colleen poses the question, “what makes the life of the fetus more important than respecting a woman’s decision to reject life sustaining treatments?” The life of the fetus is not being held as more important than the woman. But yes, as the woman has no chance to live the fetus, a potential life, becomes more important in the eyes of the state. As John Stuart Mill inferred in his harm principle, one may do whatever one likes until it touches someone else’s nose. While the United States government is much more intrusive in the lives of its citizens than any state Mill would enjoy envisioning I still think his argument applies here. The living will of the woman should be held up when ethical and possible but this is a clear case when her freedom to dictate her will would be harming another individual. It would in fact be killing an individual—the ultimate, irreversible harm and therefore the state must protect the child.
Haylie’s slippery slope concern interested me. She asked if because of the fact that the personhood of the pregnant woman in question is gone “would one then [be able to] argue that it is morally acceptable to mutilate a corpse simply for the fact that the soul has left the body?” However this would be in no way legitimate because there is no justifiable purpose for such an act. By rejecting a body’s personhood I’m not advocating that we should disrespect the memory of the dead, and as Haylie said this would cause pain for people who cared for this individual when they were alive. I’m simply advocating the use of the woman’s body for a greater good, in producing the life of her unborn child. No good would be coming from mutilation but an unarguable good would come from enabling a child to be born.
Rejecting a pregnant woman’s living will is a simple question of importance. What is more crucial, that the state protect the right to live or the right to die? The lawful, ethical, and moral assumption for the state here would be to protect tangible life for its (potential) citizens.