Abstract
Decision-making for pregnant women or fetuses who suffer brain injury is emotionally difficult and conceptually challenging. When both the pregnant woman and the fetus have suffered an injury with a poor neurological prognosis, and decisions about one of them will have implications for the other—decision-making is even more difficult. Decision-making standards and principles are reviewed for both pregnant women and for fetuses, using a real case from the author’s institution. Practical suggestions are made regarding deliberative processes and consultative models that can help with these difficult cases.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
People from some religious traditions do in fact claim that a just-fertilized egg has the same interests as a newborn baby, and that destroying a just-fertilized egg would violate the same norms that are violated if one were to kill a healthy newborn. Holding such a viewpoint would dramatically alter the ethical analysis involving life-sustaining therapies for pregnant women. Analysis of cases from this viewpoint, and analysis of the full ethical implications of such a viewpoint, are beyond the scope of this chapter.
References
Beauchamp TL, Childress JF. A framework of standards for surrogate decision making. In: Pierce J, Randels G, editors. Contemporary bioethics. New York: Oxford University Press; 2012.
Beauchamp TL, Childress JF. Principles of biomedical ethics. 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press; 2012.
Ringer S. Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) ethics. In: Toy E, Raine SP, Cochrane T, editors. Case files: medical ethics and professionalism. New York: McGraw Hill; 2015. p. 267–277.
Hagen EM, Therkelsen OB, Forde R, Aasland O, Janvier A, Hansen TW. Challenges in reconciling best interest and parental exercise of autonomy in pediatric life-or-death situations. J Pediatr. 2012;161:146–51.
Harrison H. The offer they can’t refuse: parents and perinatal treatment decisions. Semin Fetal Neonatal Med. 2008;13:329–34.
McHaffie HE, Laing IA, Parker M, McMillan J. Deciding for imperiled newborns: medical authority or parental autonomy? J Med Ethics. 2001;27:104–9.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cochrane, T.I. (2019). Ethical Decisions in Pregnancy. In: O’Neal, M. (eds) Neurology and Psychiatry of Women. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04245-5_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04245-5_21
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-04244-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-04245-5
eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)