Everyday Ethics

While following the coverage of this week’s Supreme Court decision on abortions, many reporters went to the most polemic sources and asked the most predictable questions.

Falling back on a line of questioning that interprets the story as black and white with winners and losers was a disservice to the audience.

Of course strident opponents of legal abortion would call it a “stunning victory.” Of course ardent supporters of legal abortion would call it a  “shattering defeat.” But many of us didn’t know what we thought.

So I called on Art Caplan, an ethicist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, an MSNBC columnist and a member of the Poynter Advisory Board.
 
“This is a very narrow battle ground,” he said.

The fetuses are generally between 18 and 30 weeks along (38-40 weeks is full term). Doctors seek to abort these fetuses for three general reasons – if the mother’s health is critical because of a pregnancy-induced condition that cannot be controlled, if the fetus has a deadly infection that could spread to the mother, or if tests reveal the fetus has a fatal deformity that will doom the child to death. In the last scenario, many doctors would prefer to give a woman a choice to end the pregnancy, rather than force her to wait for natural labor to start, which could be months away.

By failing to describe the detail in these scenarios journalists create an environment where we can all believe the worst. If I’m against abortion, I might imagine reckless women aborting perfectly healthy babies at 26-28 weeks, the same gestational age of many babies currently in the neonatal intensive care. If I’m in favor of legal abortion, I might envision women dying, because infection sets in or her blood pressure rises too high.

In fact, neither scenario is likely, Caplan says. Doctors can still end a pregnancy and extract a fetus in these cases. The Supreme Court ruling affirmed a law that says doctors can’t take any action to harm the fetus during the process or after it is out of the womb.

It is still possible to ensure the fetus dies in the womb, Caplan said. Using an ultrasound for guidance, doctors can still inject potassium chloride into the fetus’ blood stream or heart, he said.

“This is about euthanasia, not Roe vs. Wade,” Caplan told me during a phone conversation. “Doctors are saying, 'I can’t do this procedure because I don’t know what to do about the fetus.' ”

This is difficult moral territory, complicated by the questions of when life begins and when it ends. When is it acceptable to not treat a severely premature or severely deformed baby?

While some people answer with theology, others look to science. By pandering to the extreme voices on this issue, we miss the important and unsettling conversation we should be having in the middle.