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Food for thought for people reading the above: if a pregnant woman has a cardiac arrest, you have 3 minutes to decide if you are going to perform an emergency C
by robbiep 10y ago
Food for thought for people reading the above: if a pregnant woman has a cardiac arrest, you have 3 minutes to decide if you are going to perform an emergency Caesarean section to save the child's life, or else you kill it too.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- zaroth 10y agoI would say, ...or else the fetus dies with her.
- robbiep 10y agoApologies for the dark angle... doctors have gallows humour.
- joncp 10y agoI would say, ...or you've let the child die with her.
- crazypyro 10y agoThis isn't a healthy mindset for anyone in the healthcare industry.
- komali2 10y agoFailing to resuscitate someone is not the equivalent of killing them in my mind.
- wahern 10y agoA trolley is out of control, barreling toward 6 unaware adult strangers, including 2 parents with children at home. The only person who recognizes the impeding tragedy is you. Fortunately, the lever for a switch is within reach. Scenario #1: If you pull the lever, you'll divert the trolley toward a 6-month-old infant in a carriage, killing it instantly. Do you hesitate such that you risk missing the opportunity to save the 6 people? Scenario #2: If you pull the lever, you'll divert the trolley to a 9-week-old, 1-inch long fetus in a petri dish (being transported and kept viable outside the womb due to new science). Do you hesitate such that you risk missing the opportunity to save the 6 people? If you answered yes to #2, you're either delusional or a morally troubled person. The modern anti-abortion movement requires adopting a disgusting equivocation. Sane, honest people can value fetal life without equivocating it to an actual child. Granted, the trolley problem has many flaws. There are many ways to legitimately weasel out of answering the question, but I think it fairly exhibits the senseless equivocation people make in the debate.
- user5994461 10y agoIn both scenario, the optimal solution is to freeze. It's the easiest option to defend in front of an audience and it will leave no witnesses in any of these scenarios ;)
- joncp 10y agoThe original comment above contained no dilemma. There was no choice between saving the mother and the foetus. The mother was already dead. Stand down; you're batting at a straw man.
- ars 10y agoAppropos to how someone would answer #2, your insults and denigration of someone who would disagree with you are utterly repugnant and repulsive.
- wahern 10y agoI'm unashamed to say that allowing (even hypothetically) 6, innocent, conscious human beings to die for the sake of an _idea_ (that is, that a fetus is equivalent to a born human child) is gross. Allowing ideas to dismiss one's obligation to respect individuals' humanity and to life is indefensible; and any view that equivocates such a nascent fetal life to that of a born human is indisputably and fundamentally a philosophical, if not religious, proposition. Using such a proposition to excuse death is anathema to civilized society and everything humanity has painfully learned in the past two centuries. The same logic that permits one to claim a fetal life is equivalent to a born human (or, especially, a conscious human) is the same logic that permits one to claim that Jews are subhuman. Both cases discard the necessity for any objective standard (whatever that standard is, and whether it's definite and knowable in all cases). In as much as I impugned the poster's personal character, I apologize. I'll leave my posting unedited as it's a fair criticism, and editing it would be self-serving. I endeavour to criticize specific behavior and opinions, not individuals. My post was sloppy and wrong in that regard.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- nommm-nommm 10y agoWhatever your philosophical or spiritual leanings are the biological and medical definition of "child" does not include fetuses.
- jsight 10y agoThat depends upon which definition of "child" you are going with. Some are broad enough to describe any offspring (from fetus to adult).
- AndreiC92 10y agoI hope I never get to use this information.
- 13of40 10y agoIf you ever have to apply that knowledge, you'd better hope the autopsy can prove she died of a heart attack.
- pavlov 10y agoHow many people could perform an emergency C-section out of the blue, without harming the child as well? I hope nobody actually thinks this is worth considering if your pregnant wife has a heart attack.
- bbcbasic 10y ago"You kill it too" is a loaded way to put it and isn't how the law would see it. Although if you stick a kitchen knife in her they may see that a bit differently! I'd probably call emergency services like most sane people. I'm sure even an OB would to the same even though technically they have the skills to do a C section. Even if they were already at the hospital. Finally heart attacks are not necessarily or even usually fatal.
- robbiep 10y agoA heart attack is different to a cardiac arrest, the later of which implies that circulation has stopped. There are many causes of arrest and it would be unusual for a woman of child bearing age to have an arrest as a result of a heart attack. The training for emergency room doctors is for us to have the c section kit ready to go on arrival of the woman and be prepared to open the abdomen after the first cycle or compressions/resus - otherwise we have left it too long and the fetus is suffering. My point in illustrating this was only to show that It is interesting to consider how quickly you need to make an enormous decision.