CASE STUDY: 

#2

In August 2000, a young woman from Gozo, an island south of Italy, discovered that she
was carrying conjoined twins. Knowing that health-care facilities on Gozo were inadequate to
deal with the complications of such a birth, she and her husband went to St. Mary’s Hospital in
Manchester, England, to have the babies delivered. The infants, known as Mary and Jodie, were
joined at the lower abdomen. Their spines were fused, and they had one heart and one pair of
lungs between them. Jodie, the stronger one, was providing blood for her sister.
No one knows how many sets of conjoined twins are born each year, but the number
has been estimated at 200. Most die shortly after birth, but some conjoined twins do well. They
grow to adulthood and marry and have children themselves. But the outlook for Mary and Jodie
was grim. The doctors said that without intervention the girls would die within six months. The
only hope was an operation to separate them. This would save Jodie, but Mary would die
immediately.
The parents, who were devout Catholics, refused permission for the operation on the
grounds that it would hasten Mary’s death. “We believe that nature should take its course,”
they said. “if it is God’s will that both our children should not survive, then so be it.” The
hospital, hoping to save at least of the infant, petitioned the courts for permission to separate
them over the parent’s objections.  The court granted permission, and the operation was
performed.  As expected, Jodie lived and Mary died.

Questions:
1. Who should make the decision from the question of what the decision should be?
Making a choice in this case is difficult to make as this situation might mean the
difference between an innocent person's life and death. According to Dr. Diekma of UW
Dept. of Bioethics & Humanities, the obligation and power to make medical decisions
for their children rests with their parents. This includes the freedom to reject or stop
medical interventions, including ones that might be necessary for survival. However, the
child's best interests should be taken into consideration while making parental
decisions. Decisions that are obviously not in the best interests of a kid can and should
be contested. My opinion is that it is very challenging to determine who should make
the decisions in these challenging situations, but if we look further, we discover that
those innocent kids belong to their parents, who are responsible for deciding what is
best for their welfare and development. I can appreciate both parties' points of view
and ideas because they both want what is best for the babies, but in this case, the
 parents of the twins should always make the final decision because they are the
guardians and the twins are their children. Parents always consider what is best for
their children because they want to give their twins the best life and want to show them
the beauty in this world even in such a short time. They will accept whatever occurs
because they believe that everything that occurs is in accordance with the Lord's plans
and intentions.

2. Would it be right or wrong, in these circumstances, to separate the twins?

In this situation, many factors need to be taken into account. The twins will have
a limited amount of time, and the professionals believe that they will be denied the
right to life, so they need to decide what is the best solution, even if it means sacrificing
one person in order to gain one. From the perspective of the doctors and lawyers, they
want to grant Jodie the right to give her a chance and to live normally as well as see the
beauty in this world, while still taking Mary's life into consideration. When we consider
the twins' parents, who have faith in God and believe in the law of the Lord, it is not
right to deny them the right to their children's welfare and to let an innocent child died
who only wants to be born and have life because doing so can seriously undermine their
faith. They also believe that the Lord holds our destination and that our path is in His
hands, so if that is His will, then let it be. Everyone, in my opinion, has the right to live,
but sometimes difficult circumstances force us to do some critical condition, and we
must choose the best course of action. Jodie has a right to live and experience maturity,
but it is wrong in this case that they do so against the opposition of their parents.
Separating the twins will result in the loss of one person's ability to experience life and
the gain of one person's ability to see the scenery of the world. They discredit the
feelings and choices of devoted parents who wish to spend their limited time with their
twins. They neglected their parental duties to Jodie, their child, but I hope that they
won't feel bad or become burdensome parents in the future when they see her.