Case Study : Maternal And Fetal Rights

In some ethical and legal respects a pregnant woman and her fetus can be considered separate. Both the woman and the fetus are ordinarily affected by the well-being of one another for as long as each of them live. The ethical and legal issues are challenged deeply in cases where the well-being of the fetus and the mother appear to be in conflict. Our society struggles with identifying cases where the pregnant woman’s interests and/or behaviors might put her fetus at risk. Criminal and/or civil commitments should be used to bar pregnant women from exposing their fetuses to risk.

Before researching on abortion issues, I never imagined it to be such controversial and debatable case because the problem arises from the very early stages of analyzing what administrative ethics would answer. I became overwhelmed to start because my mind became blurred on legality and ethics of abortion as early as defining administrative ethics: “well-based standards of right and wrong prescribing what public administrators ought to do in terms of duty to public service, principles, virtues, and benefits to society”. Ethics triangle is grounded on duties in the center with principles, virtues, and benefits to society augmenting it. Duties of public administrator involves those ‘obligations taken on while assuming a position’. They might

One of the first moral issues addressed by both sides of the abortion debate concerns a pregnant woman’s so-called natural “right” to make “reproductive choices.” (“The Rights of Pregnant Women”) Anti-abortion advocacy groups claim that “the only way to actually protect the mother’s rights will be by enforcing laws that secure her child’s right to life,” (“Argument 2”) whereas pro-abortion groups contend that these laws “create a dangerous precedent for wide-ranging government intrusion into the lives of all women.” (“The Rights”) With two fundamentally contrasting viewpoints at odds with each other, it is apparent that one of the core issues concurrent with abortion is a woman’s rights versus the rights of her unborn fetus.

Everyone knows the disastrous effects cancer has on a person and their loved ones. Knowing that my mom was misdiagnosed, there could've been a moment when she may have still been here on Earth. During 2005, my mom noticed that something was wrong with her. This realization lead her to go seek a doctor at Lincoln hospital. During her examination, the doctors didn't noticed anything was wrong. After three years she went back again, and Dr. Max Ann examined my mother a second time,but this time he discovered that she had cancer. This

Mary Anne Warren (p.195-196) points out the exceptional circumstances of pregnancy; where one human is entirely biologically reliant on another and where it is impossible for complete personhood rights to not be in conflict between the foetus and the mother. Consider the following case. A mother and an expecting mother both express an intent to kill their child or unborn child respectively. Services are available to take the postnatal children from their mother without affecting her body. Yet to protect the foetus, one would have to imprison the mother until birth, or worse, force a caesarean on her. Warren (193) points out that forced caesareans are not merely a hypothetical

Jane Roe, a pregnant mother wanting to abort her child sued in the interest of herself, and other women in comparable circumstances during a struggle to stop Texas from criminalizing all abortions except the ones that would save the life of a mother. Texas had made it a crime to receive an abortion except when the doctor advises the mother have an abortion for her own health and safety. Jane Roe wanted a ruling that declared these Texas’ statutes to be unconstitutional and also, she wanted to prevent the District Attorney from enforcing them. Roe alleged that she was pregnant and unmarried. She could not legally obtain an abortion by a licensed doctor because her life was not endangered. So, she argued that the law was unconstitutional and invaded upon her privacy rights that were protected by multiple amendments and laws. Claiming it invaded upon her privacy rights by not allowing her to abort her child.

Since Roe v Wade, there have been major advancements in the maternal-fetal world of medicine. Advanced technology and science have shown us that there is “life” to a fetus before the last trimester, leading to many regulations and laws to prohibit abortion for the life the fetus. Discussed in this paper are the policies, court cases, and executive decisions affecting legal abortion in the US and the ethical implications that debate them.

Since the 1960s, the fight to receive accessible and affordable abortions has been a largely controversial issue in the United States. The case Roe v. Wade was the climax of that fight, for “the Court held that... only a pregnant woman and her doctor have the legal right to make the decision about an abortion” (“History of Abortion”). Although Roe v. Wade ultimately made abortions legal in the States, there are still setbacks for affordable and accessible abortions today, and many of these conflicts may be directly traced to state-by-state determination of abortion laws.

In 1973, a woman named Norma McCorvey used an alias, Jane Roe, to pursue an appeal to a state law in Texas declaring that she could not receive an abortion. At the time, the Texas law stated “only a life-saving procedure on behalf of the mother, without regard to pregnancy stage and without recognition of other interests involved.” The issue with this state statute, as claimed by the appellate Jane Roe, was that it violated her right to privacy, and the concept of personal liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. After being denied an abortion, Jane Roe carried the child to term and gave it up for adoption, then proceeded to take her claim to the Supreme Court. After much deliberation, interpretation of the Constitution, and scrutiny of the Texas statute, the justices ruled that abortions, done within the first trimester and with the judgment of a physician, are legal. This overrules the Texas statute, and sets a new precedent for the regulations of abortions.

Most recently the “no taxpayer funding for abortion act”, has abortion advocates reeling (Maguire, A-14). Even though, abortion has been legal in every state in the United States since the monumental Supreme Court decision, “Roe v Wade”, on January 22, 1973, there are fewer physicians willing to perform abortions today than in 2008 (Kraft, 09). At the heart of the ethical dilemma for many in the medical profession is the viability of the fetus (USA TODAY). And just to make this whole dilemma more confusing, according to the United States Government, “The child in utero, at any stage of development in the womb”, is protected by the Unborn Victims Violence Act of 2004 (Unborn Victims of Violence Act, A-1). Medical professionals have the

The population that is skeptical of the approval of abortion is primarily concerned about the fetus. Fetal rights are primarily used to argue against the fact that while women have the right to abort, fetuses also have the right to life. The term originated after Roe v. Wade as a defense for fetal life, following the Court rule that a fetus is not a person under the fourteenth amendment (Fetal Rights 1). However, some pro-choice activists argue that fetal rights should not even exist. According to the Gale Encyclopedia of American Law, “Historically, under both English common law and U.S. law, the fetus has not been recognized as a person with full rights. Instead, legal rights have centered on the mother, with the fetus treated as a part of

Just four years ago Emily Dumler was living a happy and healthy life with her husband and three kids. Until one summer afternoon when Emily started to feel unwell, her sickness indeed up getting so bad that she checked into urgent care. From there no one could figure out what was wrong with her, and Emily had to stay in the hospital for forty three days, before it was realized that she indeed had cancer. Emily says, “Scott (her husband) and I were actually relieved to find out I had cancer because what I had been going through for the last forty three days was so rough and we wanted to find a treatment that could help me.

One of those patients is Kelly, an extremely proud father and grandfather. Kelly had been hospitalized after contracting the norovirus, but even though he felt horrible, he thought he was healthy and would recover after some rest. He was, after all, only 44. You can imagine his shock when a tumor on his liver was discovered by accident through a routine x-ray. Kelly was referred to Virginia Mason’s Cancer Institute, which provides patients with

The pro-choice group builds their moral and legal case on a few main tenets but mainly the fact that a woman should have autonomy over her body, that the concept of personhood is understood to occur once viability is achieved, and that the right to privacy exists and it is applicable to the abortion issue via Roe. The pro-life side examines many of these same arguments, but takes the opposite view on them.

A pregnant woman diagnosed with cancer is a very rare case in medicine. Nonetheless, this case still presents itself in the field of medicine. Approximately, 1 in 1000 pregnant women are affected by cancer (“Cancer During Pregnancy”). Conflicts that pin maternal health versus fetal health have come to an attention-grabbing point in our society. The pregnant woman legally has the right to accept treatment that will harm the unborn child. Still, it becomes a moral issue whether she owes it to her unborn child to refuse treatment in order to avoid fetal harm and deliver a healthy child. For the sake of argument, this paper will predominantly deal with pregnant cancer patients faced with the dilemma between refusing chemotherapy which may