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A Moral Dilemma

It is Saturday night. You went to a movie with several of your friends. After the movie you went to a restaurant. You are eating dessert (ice-cream, pie), drinking coffee and talking about the movie, school, work and life.

You notice that one of your friends is quiet. You ask if anything is wrong. The friend says that he has a problem at work and don’t know what to do.

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The friend, Joe, works in a medical lab. A sample came in at quitting time on Friday. There was not time to perform the test. Joe put the sample into the refrigerator to save it until Monday.

The test that was requested looks for a genetic marker that indicates deafness. Typically, the sample is from amniocentesis. Amniocentesis is a procedure where some fluid is removed from the womb. It contains cells sloughed off from the fetus. The cells contain DNA that can be checked for various disorders. There is a fifty percent chance that the test will come back positive (i.e., the baby will be deaf) if one of the parents is deaf.

Joe faces a moral dilemma. The doctor who requested the test performs many abortions. Joe is afraid that he will be signing the child’s death warrant if he performs the test and the results come back positive.

Where does Joe’s responsibility end? What should Joe do?

Joe calls up the hospital social worker.

Yes, she had assisted with the patient. The woman is deaf and the social worker knows American Sign Language. The woman is. She refused to divulge whether her husband A.) Knew she was pregnant and B.) Was considering abortion.

Discuss Joe's options. What can he do? What should he do? Why?

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This story is like one of Paul Harvey's "And now you know...the rest of the story"

It turned out that the woman wanted to abort if the child was NOT deaf. The attending physician was unable to abort the child.