“Brain-dead woman gives birth, then dies.”
What’s wrong with the title of this newspaper report?
In mid-June 2006, in Rome, doctors delivered a baby girl by an emergency Cesarean section even though she was two months premature. The reason was that her mother, Cristina, had suffered the rupture of a cerebral aneurysm about three months previously. The machines and medications that were maintaining the functioning of Christina’s organs could no longer keep her blood pressure high enough. For 78 days after being declared brain dead, her body provided the environment for her fetus to continue to develop.
It is sad that the mother died and everyone hopes the baby will do well. At last report, the baby girl weighed only 1.4 pounds, but she was not dependent on machines or medications for the basic functions of life.
What needs a deeper look is the implicit mis-information created by the words that reporter chose for the title of this news article. Take another look, with certain words emphasized:
“Brain-dead woman gives birth, then dies.”
A) Someone who is dead cannot die a second time.
B) Dead people cannot perform any function of life so she did not give birth.
Here’s a more correct way to summarize what happened: After doctors performed a surgical operation to remove a live baby, they ceased providing the technology required to artificially maintain the physiological functioning of the dead mother’s body.
Grim? Perhaps. But accurate. Why worry about it?
Using the wrong words blurs the distinction between biological functioning and personhood. We can only debate what is not clear. For example, the right-to-die versus right-to-choose debate depends on differences of opinion as to when human life begins. President Bush and many others believe that it begins with conception—except in cases of rape and incest, when they do permit abortion. The legislators in South Dakota who passed their state’s HB 1215 in 2006 disagree. They make no exceptions: life begins at conception.
Similarly, at the end of life: Pope John Paul II’s Allocution of March 2004 stated that patients in the permanent vegetative state are still human beings and therefore must be given artificial food and nutrition indefinitely. Many others disagree and believe it is appropriate to discontinue even manually assisted feeding of people in end-stage dementia. These patients are conscious and can experience pain, but no longer can recognize loved ones, communicate, or indicate a choice -- functions that some people consider basic to the definition of person hood.
Certainly one of life’s miracles is the ability of women to give birth. Modern medical technology has the potential to help very premature babies to live full normal lives. Technology can also keep organs alive for a long time, and that will benefit other people. For example, it recently became possible to maintain the physiological functioning of a heart outside the body. Now these organs last longer, making transplantations of donor organs more possible.
In Rome however, doctors did not prolong the functioning of the mother’s organs after the live baby was surgically removed. (Some organs were donated.)
Cases like Christina’s are rare so the news reports them. The last one reported was quite similar: In 2005, Mr. R. Willing entitled his USA Today article, “Brain-dead Virginia woman dies after giving birth.”
The point is that there are tens of thousands of patients who suffer from the permanent vegetative state and a hundred times more than that number who will suffer from end-state dementia. What we decide about when life ends will make enormous social and economic impact on everyone’s lives.
You can decide now, with advance care planning, by writing down your wishes in Living Wills and Proxy Directives. But first you must think correctly; and to do that, you must use the correct words.
In mid-June 2006, in Rome, doctors delivered a baby girl by an emergency Cesarean section even though she was two months premature. The reason was that her mother, Cristina, had suffered the rupture of a cerebral aneurysm about three months previously. The machines and medications that were maintaining the functioning of Christina’s organs could no longer keep her blood pressure high enough. For 78 days after being declared brain dead, her body provided the environment for her fetus to continue to develop.
It is sad that the mother died and everyone hopes the baby will do well. At last report, the baby girl weighed only 1.4 pounds, but she was not dependent on machines or medications for the basic functions of life.
What needs a deeper look is the implicit mis-information created by the words that reporter chose for the title of this news article. Take another look, with certain words emphasized:
“Brain-dead woman gives birth, then dies.”
A) Someone who is dead cannot die a second time.
B) Dead people cannot perform any function of life so she did not give birth.
Here’s a more correct way to summarize what happened: After doctors performed a surgical operation to remove a live baby, they ceased providing the technology required to artificially maintain the physiological functioning of the dead mother’s body.
Grim? Perhaps. But accurate. Why worry about it?
Using the wrong words blurs the distinction between biological functioning and personhood. We can only debate what is not clear. For example, the right-to-die versus right-to-choose debate depends on differences of opinion as to when human life begins. President Bush and many others believe that it begins with conception—except in cases of rape and incest, when they do permit abortion. The legislators in South Dakota who passed their state’s HB 1215 in 2006 disagree. They make no exceptions: life begins at conception.
Similarly, at the end of life: Pope John Paul II’s Allocution of March 2004 stated that patients in the permanent vegetative state are still human beings and therefore must be given artificial food and nutrition indefinitely. Many others disagree and believe it is appropriate to discontinue even manually assisted feeding of people in end-stage dementia. These patients are conscious and can experience pain, but no longer can recognize loved ones, communicate, or indicate a choice -- functions that some people consider basic to the definition of person hood.
Certainly one of life’s miracles is the ability of women to give birth. Modern medical technology has the potential to help very premature babies to live full normal lives. Technology can also keep organs alive for a long time, and that will benefit other people. For example, it recently became possible to maintain the physiological functioning of a heart outside the body. Now these organs last longer, making transplantations of donor organs more possible.
In Rome however, doctors did not prolong the functioning of the mother’s organs after the live baby was surgically removed. (Some organs were donated.)
Cases like Christina’s are rare so the news reports them. The last one reported was quite similar: In 2005, Mr. R. Willing entitled his USA Today article, “Brain-dead Virginia woman dies after giving birth.”
The point is that there are tens of thousands of patients who suffer from the permanent vegetative state and a hundred times more than that number who will suffer from end-state dementia. What we decide about when life ends will make enormous social and economic impact on everyone’s lives.
You can decide now, with advance care planning, by writing down your wishes in Living Wills and Proxy Directives. But first you must think correctly; and to do that, you must use the correct words.
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