Student’s Name: La’Nejah Hairston
Professor’s Name: Jiamachello
Course
Date: September 13, 2020
Response to the Article: Saving Life or Trumping Autonomy? A Question for Health Care Providers
The dilemma presented in the article’s scenario is quite tricky to handle and decide. However, I agree with the health care providers; in that, if I were in their position, I would have acted just exactly as they did. On a typical occasion, decision making is done basing on the weighing of risks against the benefits, and where the weight falls favors the decision. In this case, the mother’s life outweighs that of the child and way more than the sinful act of aborting. It is not a rationale to let the mother lose her life just because the husband insists that a pregnancy termination is a sinful act according to the Islam religion.
Another key factor is that any other healthcare practitioner has taken an oath to do their best within their power to save the life of their patient. This statement in itself does not seclude some other parts of the factors that may hinder the healthcare practitioner from saving the patient’s life. This implies that religious belief is not superior to the patient’s life (Bhardwaj, 69). Also, in this case, religious belief and practice are subject to adjustment, but the patient’s life remains on stake and becomes irreversible once it is gone. Therefore, the essential factor was to save the patient’s life and explain to the family later when she is stable.
It is worth acknowledging that healthcare practitioners should always be culturally sensitive while offering their healthcare services. Still then, the cultural practices in place should not hinder their need to provide essential healthcare services to their patients. There is a dire need for patients to be offered wide knowledge of healthcare and the options they have. They need to understand what priority is and what should be compromised. The patient’s husband in question seemed to have had shallow knowledge about Islam’s prohibition of abortion, and he applied the rules selectively. The religion has a limit in which it bends its rules; this is when the mother’s life is at risk. The faith also acknowledges that the mother’s life is more important than that of the child, in that a mother is a giver of life while a fetus is a potential giver of life. Furthermore, the constitution allows for abortion if the life of the mother is at risk (Wais & Qarani, 2). Therefore, if he had this knowledge with him, he would probably have made a better decision. Respecting patient’s autonomy is equally important, but it is just not a priority in this case.
The medical ethics theory tied to this situation is the utilitarian theories by John Stuart Mill. Mill believed that a decision that is thought to be morally correct is the one that causes more happiness than it causes unhappiness to the people affected by the decision (Taylor, 2). However, the decision making based on the happiness ration may be rejected if the action is based on a repeated trend that brings unwanted consequences to the larger groups in society. In this case, the medical care practitioners saved the life of the dying mother, which bought more joy than it would have been if the abortion was avoided in the stake of the mother’s life. Holding to religious beliefs about pregnancy termination may seem fair, but it leads to negative consequences when viewed on different dimensions.
Works Cited
Bhardwaj, Pradeep. “Principles of Medical Ethics.” Latest in Healthcare Management, 2015, pp. 69-69.
Taylor, Stephen C. “Health Care Ethics.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy | An Encyclopedia of Philosophy Articles Written by Professional Philosophers, 2020, iep.utm.edu/h-c-ethi/.
Wais, Sobia I., and Mohammad Qarani. “Saving Life or Trumping Autonomy? A Question for Health Care Providers.” Journal of Clinical Research & Bioethics, vol. 06, no. 05, 2015, pp. 1-2.