It's Not a Petri-Dish

    I have no idea where to begin. I mean, I've been asked the reasons for why I write...other than to annoy people! That's a fair question. The shortest answer is, I'm interested in a lot of things and writing helps me work them out and it calms my mind. I also like to interact with friends, as well as strangers, about different topics and having this website allows me to do that. Then, even though I'm frightfully shy, I find myself posting this website on Facebook so even more people/friends will read it and hopefully respond (and my fragile ego thanks all of you who do respond!). Lastly, the world annoys me more than I care to admit, and I just start typing...this is one of those times.

     There seems to be a small bio-ethical/philosophical movement afoot surrounding the idea of brain death and body ownership. And because small ideas sometimes become large ideas, I feel myself becoming annoyed. The Cliff Notes version to my annoyance is as follows: a neurologist by the name of Dr. Alan Shewmon has been a controversial figure for over 20 years, in the debates with regard to brain death criteria. His research has raised important questions with regard to healthcare economics and how the pressure to increase the organs available for transplant might mean these organs are being harvested from people who may, in fact, not be dead. That's not good, Peter. No, it is not, Sancho.

    The above leads to the more over-arching question of bodily autonomy and, not to put too fine a point on it, who owns the body and the accompanying body parts once a person goes on to that, in the immortal words of Hamlet, "Undiscovered Country". Because, depending on who has the final say...there is an exploitation issue: The rich can buy new organs, while the poor or vulnerable will have to sell. Or, can those who hold the patent profit off the discoveries they make using your body? Do you or your heirs have no legal right to any of that money? The most famous example being Henrietta Lacks. 

    So here we are, years after Dr. Shewmon came on the scene, to find that a professor of philosophy at the University of Oslo, Anna Smajdor, published an article titled "Whole Body Gestational Donation" (WBGD). Smajdor was expanding on an article by Rosalie Ber. Ber suggested that women in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) be used as gestational surrogates. Having read the synopsis of her piece, I was more than surprised at her suggestion, seeing that there is more than enough controversy around the moral and legal issues of surrogacy. Also, I had trouble discerning whether or not either writer was making a distinction between being in a persistent vegetative state and brain death. I mean, you can recover from PVS...whereas brain death is final. So are they making a moral distinction between the two, and that it's more acceptable to use a PVS patient for surrogacy as opposed to one with brain death? Deep, and somewhat disturbing questions, all.

    Smajdor notes that pregnant women who are brain-dead or in PVS are kept alive in order to deliver babies safely by C-section. And while noting that women in these two medical conditions cannot consent to surrogacy, she seems more than blasé in suggesting that it would be easy to tweak existing organ donation laws. She figures that if the woman is already an organ donor, all she would be doing is furthering that desire to her uterus, which is an organ. Hmmm... The problem with that reasoning, or one of the problems, is that current organ donation is mostly done to save a life. At the risk of being insensitive, surrogacy is not saving a life. No one is gonna die if they don't have a child. Childlessness can be a painful cross to bear, but it is not life-threatening. 

    Smajdor is also quick to point out that sometimes a cornea is donated, which is not life-saving. This is true. However, I might argue that the slippery slope, of which there are many in this world, equating a cornea with the act of keeping a body "alive" for 9 months to carry a child without the express written consent of the woman, is an act of abuse. It seems to me this is just one of many questions/issues that Ms. Smajdor and Ms. Ber have not thought through. And, of course, maybe they don't want to.

    May I humbly suggest we grant that a woman has died, and allow her a proper burial based upon her religious and/or philosophical beliefs, if any. Can we do this instead of putting her on life support for 9 months to use her as nothing more than a petri-dish so that we can grow something, not of her own doing or consent, inside of her? Is the body just a thing to be used for the good of another?

    Smajdor does acknowledge the feminists concern about dissociating women for their reproductive systems and commodifying women's bodies...but she doesn't seem to care. For her, these questions are moot because the woman is brain-dead. There is no respect for the dead or the dying, or for that matter, for the life that is becoming. I mean, there have to be some psychological issues for the child once he or she finds out that they were grown in a fetal container; for that's what this woman has become.

    The phrase "medical-ethics" has not been at the forefront of the news lately. I remember the issue of "stem-cell harvesting" came and went a number of years ago. There may have been no full-blown consensus on that issue, but the fact that it was put on the national table for debate was, in my opinion, healthy. But the more we are able to do from a scientific/medical/technological standpoint, the more the idea of medical ethics matters. Proposals like "whole body gestational surrogates" just seem frighteningly inhumane to me. While we do not own the human body, I believe we do owe the human body both dignity and respect. And while anyone who knows me knows I am not anti-science by any stretch of the imagination...I do believe that sometimes, just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should. 

   

write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com