Should women who have trouble bringing a child to term stop trying?

An interesting question that I just heard.

Let's assume for the sake of this hypothetical that everyone agrees any abortion (even down to the first or second month) is murder.

In that world, how would this the following situation be treated.

A woman has trouble bringing a child to term, having had multiple miscarriages. After multiple tests it eventually is concluded that she is medically incapable of bringing a child to term.

She then has unprotected sex and gets pregnant. (whether intentionally or through accidental misuse of contraception is unknown).

Would she be guilty of manslaughter?

Please note, this question is not intended as a point for or against abortion rights. It is merely a real curiosity that I had not considered before. Any side effects from possible situations like this do nothing to change the fundamental right/wrong of the issue.

As further clarification, how dangerous is this to the woman? Is she endangering her own life by repeatedly getting herself pregnant a) knowing that she can't carry the child to term and b) knowing that she's likely going to kill herself?

In any case, I don't think wondering whether abortion is murder is even relevant to the question of whether she should put her desires on hold for a bit. Seems to me she needs to get her health concerns straightened out first.

Let's assume that everyone agrees that deliberately causing an innocent person to die is murder.

A woman has trouble having children who do not eventually die. No matter what, they all seem to die sooner or later. Let's assume that it can be stated with absolute certainty that, if she has a child, sooner or later that child will die.

If she goes ahead with having a child, does that make her guilty of manslaughter?

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Her wellbeing isn't your (our) concern. We are prosecutors in this hypothetical world, and the consequences of the law are our only concern.

Well, it seems, then you've made her actions a crime and are asking us if we've got the nerve to do our jobs. Forget the crime and the sympathy ploy. Just ask us if we're willing to be good officers of the court.

edit - and, as prosecutors, the consequences of the law are not our concern. As prosecutors, our concern is to put her in jail for breaking the law.

It should also be noted that the "thought experiment" in the opening post doesn't really have any application in reality. My own mother, after having one child who was born two months premature but managed to survive (quite a feat back in the 40s), subsequently lost quite a few children through micarriages. It was widely assumed, including by herself, that she would never be able to have children. Yet all of a sudden she carried four of us to term in five years. We weren't even premies. It is pretty much impossible to know that a woman can't carry children to term. It can be fairly clearly suspected (as it was with my mother), and yet turn out to be wrong.

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An important factor would be that you don't need to be certain that death will be the outcome to be guilty of manslaughter. In fact if you are certain ahead of time that death will be the result of your actions then murder would be the most appropriate charge.

If you for example drove a car down the street with a 10% change of exploding, and it did so, wouldn't that still be manslaughter?

Then respond to my first post in this thread: Since all women know that, if they have children, those children will eventually die ("death will be the result of your actions"), does that make them guilty of murder? After all, they could prevent those deaths by not having those children.

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You should really clarify that - for example, all die under the age of four.

Because all mothers give birth to children who eventually die.

There is no need to clarify it. Whether they die at four, or forty, or one hundred forty, they still die.

So, since having a child means you are directly contributing to someone dying who otherwise would not die, does that make you guilty of murder?

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Also, since it seems I am having trouble persuading people that I am asking a legitimate question here (albeit one the answer to which would obviously rub a lot of people strongly one way or another) and not trying to score a political point, I will give more transparency on what inspired this thread.

I was reading about a law recently being debated in Utah which it appears could charge a woman if she engages in, among other things, "reckless" activity which results in the loss of a pregnancy.

As another example of how this question does nothing to score points on either side in my view, I will point to my personal view on the concept of "universal morality". Some people, including Asyncritus, have pointed to potential consequences of not believing in such a concept in trying to persuade me that it exists. However while I have acknowledged that there are things which would be better if it did, that does not affect the view on whether or not it does exist. That does nothing to diminish the view that there are laws of universal morality that it would be best for all of humanity to live by regardless of whether or not they are coded into the universe. Similarly, consequences of a pro or anti-abortion rights view do nothing to diminish those if you believe they exist as strong universal concepts.

That's a really good point from both of you. While taking on the assumption of unborn children being human lives for the OP I did not fully explore the consequences of that and had a natural tendancy to still seperate the unborn from the born. If we are going to eradicate that line for this hypothetical then it is hard to discern a difference between a child you are reasonably sure will die at six months gestation versus one who will die at six or even sixty years.

She should do whatever results in consequences she can live with.

I don't know about other states.

But in my state, if a person dies more than 30 days after the event that caused their medical problem then that event IS NOT presumed to have caused their death.

I'll give an example.

The father of a classmate of mine was in a fiery car accident in the middle of summer one year.

He was not only severely burned and injured but he was trapped in his roasting vehicle for hours.

He died about two months later.

Because he died more than 30 days after the accident, the accident was not considered to be his legal cause of death.

So a woman giving birth to a child she knew would die in a year or two would in no way be responsible for the death of the child.

Seriously? So you could be exposed to a massive dose of radiation, die of radiation sickness 31 days later, but it would be considered not to be the legal cause?

I'm going to surprise you here. I have a hard time with someone trying to define the concept of reckless behavior in regards to pregnancy. Although I am opposed to abortion, I'm also a strong believer in individual freedom. I'm also a huge skeptic in believing that doctors and politicians of any sort know what's generally best for groups of people. Apparently, there does have to be some kind of legal limit to help people know when enough is enough, though, or these kinds of laws would never see the light of day. They don't appear fully formed out of a vacuum. (By the way, that person exercising their freedom had darned well better be ready to exercise some responsibility as well...)

It reminds me of arguments about pornography. I think pornography is wrong but I admit that the best definition is "knowing it when I see it" and knowing how hard that is to turn into a generally usable law.

The concept that human life is very important or, at the very least, should be fought for and defended as strongly as possible should be one that everyone can agree on, regardless of your religious views. Apparently, though, it's not. We can't even agree on that, sad to say. Sorry, now I'm wandering off on a subject you said you really weren't trying to provoke...

As they say, "that's messed up."

Well then you get into a whole side issue of "at what cost".

Take UHC for example, obviously protecting the health/lives of those who could not otherwise do so for themselves is a noble cause. The point of contention is at what point does it go too far.

edit: You said that you thought your position would surprise me, but it doesn't really because I try to avoid buying into the mentality that those who hold different views to myself are really different people. While there are exceptions, 90% of the time it is people just approaching the same idea from different directions and thus reaching different conclusions.

I'm not sure I would've adopted the 30 day time frame myself.

But IIRC, it was to prevent families of people who were injured in an accident that was considered survivable but who later died because of a medical error in the hospital from going all the way back to the initial accident and suing someone because they had the deepest pockets or the case was easiest to prove.

The thing to me though, the longer it is since the initial event, the more possible causes and thus possible sources of liability there are.

For practicality, you've got to have a hard and fast cut off time.

For example, a 30 year old worker is exposed to a massive dose of radiation.

Ten years later, he develops cancer.

Ten years of fighting the cancer he finally dies.

Lots of people die well before their 50th birthdays anyway. Lots of people develop cancer anyway. How could you ever prove that his cancer was caused by the radiation exposure and not some other factor.

There's a world of difference between 30 days surviving massive burns or radiation and 20 years of living with something you never knew you had. Most anyone would say that an otherwise healthy person who'd died 31 days after that accident was killed as a result of it.

I understand your reservations.

But what if that severely injured person has 20 different surgeries over the course of two months after an accident to correct injuries.

During surgery #20, the doctor makes an understandable though regrettable medical error that costs the person their life.

Is it right for the people who were involved in the original accident in the first place to be burdened with all the liability?

What if they aren't even severely injured in the original accident? What if two months after the accident they undergo surgery to follow up problems with a severe leg fracture suffered in the accident yet during surgery suffer a fatal bloodclot?

You have to have a hard and clear cut off at some point regarding liability.

I hope that is just a paraphrase and not the scope. It's so broad that a woman could run afoul of the law just riding in a car or on a plane. Poor women could be fucked if she's living in the wrong neighborhood or in a less than perfect house.

Besides, unless abortion is illegal there already this is just an attempt to institute it without coming out and admitting it. Probably also excuses for insurance companies to deny coverage and take further aim at alcohol and cigarettes.

Heh, I wish my philosophy professors would have admitted the same thing about the thought experiments they subjected us to. Then we all coulda got on with our lives and had meaningful discussions.

Some things simply don't present for a long time. Asbestosis for example. It can take years or decades to get bad enough to detect.

And yes, they should be burdened with it...because none of those procedures would have happened if it wasn't for the initial incident. Any possible mal-practice is a separate issue. There should not be a cut off for liability...there should be cutoffs for what and how much though...a coffee in the lap worth millions for example.

That's pretty much how most observers are seeing it.

Reckless is one of the words repeatedly used also.

http://le.utah.gov/~2010/bills/hbillenr/hb0012.htm

I think you might find this conversation interesting:

http://www.cougaruteforum.com/showthread.php?p=299056

Maybe it isn't as broad as it seems at first.

Moreover, there have been great advances in obstetrics and women who "can't carry to term" have been carrying to term. Some have to go to extraordinary measures - strict bedrest, modified diet, you name it - to have that child, but they do. Sad part is that the obstetrician has to know that she is a high risk person and work with that and have her work with him.

There's a darned good argument to be made that they do have to be burdened with a large part of the liability. Yes, the doctor(s) involved in surgery #20 need to get the anal exam for any screwups they might have committed but they never would've been involved if the first accident hadn't happened.

Then the surgery is for something else entirely and we're not having this conversation.

I agree, but 30 days is dreadfully short, particularly for some of the types of injuries that you've brought up here.

Its hard on the woman and her husband physically and emotionally.

Among the secular camp, yes. Among the religious camp, it's God's will.