One word- ghoulish.

The doctors made the right decision for a number of reasons. One is having children knowing they'll be absent one of their parents.

Unless I am wrong, there is also a medical reason. A few years ago, my wife and I were seeing a reproductive endocrinologist, which is how her ovarian cancer was detected (both times). We talked about the possibility of harvesting her eggs in case the cancer ended her fertility, and we were told that eggs don't keep well, and it would only be viable long term if we fertilized the eggs before freezing them. (This could have been an option for this woman's husband, obviously, and i'll leave the ethics aside.)

(On a side note, cancer did destroy her fertility, but we have two beautiful adopted twin daughters so we are blessed.)

Ug. Something similiar happened in Austin last year... This young guy died from injuries after some guy punched him on Sixth Street, and his mother wanted to perserve his bodily fluids so she could have a grandchild using a surrogate. I don't know what the conclusion of the case was.
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/courts/entries/2009/04/07/dead_mans_sperm_to_be_taken_by.html
I think it's awful.

@ahw at July 17, 2010 6:17 AM

It is awful, but the people who do it do so with the approval of their own conscience. After all, we do live in a generation that elevates personal feelings above values.

In a nutshell, he heart aches for a grandchild, so that is all the justification she needs--the fact that the child is deprived of a father is less significant than her feelings, which are of paramount importance.

So how is this awful, while organ donation is OK?

Thirty something is quite young for a heart attack, and I'll bet it came as a shock to everyone. I think the egg harvesting thing was a reaction to grief, to the realization that someone/something was going to be lost forever, and they wanted to preserve something.

The husband, in shock and already grieving, decided to let it pass. It was the right decision, and a non-story.

Organ donation is voluntary, no one is forced to give up their organs in the event of their death. That's one big difference. This woman didn't want kids.

Another difference is that organ donation is used to save already existent lives, whereas these people are talking about creating another life, knowing full well that the child created will never know his or her parent.

The difference is the desire to help others (organ donation saves lives) verses the desire to get what they want no matter what ("but I wannnnnnnaaaaaaa grandchild").

@Hey Skipper: "So how is this awful, while organ donation is OK?"
__________________

I don't even know how to begin to respond to an attempt to compare those two. One has to do with making someone a parent, posthumously, without their consent, therefore creating a child that will be without a parent who may never have wanted it to begin with. The other is about taking an organ, useless to the deceased, with their consent, and helping an already living person keep on living.

How one can compare to two is beyond me. That's like me saying "how can we put someone in prison for murder when abortion is OK?" While both topics are ones where reasonable may or may not be able to agree or disagree, they are two completely different issues.

One has to do with making someone a parent, posthumously, without their consent ...

You lost me there. How can someone who no longer exists be a parent?

And that is before assuming as fact that which isn't in evidence: the child will, in any meaningful way, not have a parent.

You and Lauren are presuming that because the woman in question did not want kids, she would also have objected to having a continuation of herself in the event of a fatal heart attack, or that she would have objected to her loved ones desiring that continuation.

So how is this awful, while organ donation is OK?

I've consented to become an organ donor.

"Okay, doctor. But could you at least pull out her gold fillings?"

Why would they care about hastening her death? I'm not saying they should have gotten the eggs, they should not have, but that seems a really crappy reason for them to decline, since she was dying anyway. Had she expressed her desire for it, that's another thing.

I would say this family was reacting to such a crushing and unexpected loss and that they were trying to find some way of preserving her life as Steve Daniels said. Also, I don't see where it said she didn't want kids, just that she never expressed the desire to have them. Even still, I don't think it would be right to harvest her eggs. Having a child should be a decision made by two people ready to share in that child's life, not as a preservation tactic. It really is a sad story.

I've consented to become an organ donor.

Wonderful, so have I.

But that doesn't make this awful.

Let me give you a half-hypothetical. Thirteen years ago my wife nearly died from encephalitis. Now, grant two hypotheticals: 1. We had no children at the time, instead of a four year old daughter and a two year old son. 2. Instead of making an eventual full recovery, my wife had suffered Schiavo-like brain damage and was going to die.

Let's further assume that, in the absence of grandchildren, her mother (who had already lost a 7 year old daughter to a school bus accident) asked me to agree to harvest my wife's eggs and create a child through surrogacy.

Now, tell me in which way agreeing to this would have been awful, to whom, and why.

Alternatively, explain how disagreeing would have been the morally superior decision.

@Hey Skipper: "Now, tell me in which way agreeing to this would have been awful, to whom, and why."
____________

Because you are creating a child you know will be motherless. I know, there are always exceptions, the man could marry an infertile woman and they could raise the child as their own, etc., etc., but i seriously doubt the "mom" and "dad" issue would have been settled before death.

The only real case I could think of is if there were someone infertile like my wife and they harvested her sister's eggs so she could be a mom, maybe even a close friend.

In general though, which means most cases, someone would be deprived of a parent intentionally, which is is a morally inferior decision when the main justification is "but I want" or "but I feel."

In this case, it would be posthumous parenthood without consent (which is really deliberate motherlessness). I can't condone that, depriving children of parents intentionally has been a disaster.

Next time you bury a child or a young spouse suddenly dead, I hope you deploy your higher-level, abstract ethic decision-making computer chips as effeciently and coolly as you expect of these people.

"Okay doctor. We understand. By the way, do you know any really good taxidermists?"

Meh, given current society norms with regards to abortion and who exactly owns sperm/eggs and their resulting responsibilities in certain situations I don't see how this is a big deal. We live in a society that says a man raped while passed out drunk has to pay child support to his rapist (lets not given any pretense here that its for the child).

The only real issue would be the woman's consent. Since they didn't have it, no go. Something else to put in the living will etc. I suppose. :)

Hey Skipper, I can understand where you're coming from. It would be the grief talking though. Is it really fair to a kid to always know that it was born because its mother was dying. The kid would only know the mother through pictures and family stories. Yes, its a life, but at what point to we let go of people who are dying or have died. There are excruciatingly painful stories of losing loved ones, but if she didn't express the desire to have children or have anything harvested in the unfortunate event of her death, the family made the right choice. It hurts and it sucks, but they have the choice to move on and always miss her or to stay stuck in the past. I think I would really feel sorry for a kid born into that situation.

I empathize with this family, as someone who watched my parents struggle with ending my brother's life support, and donating his organs. It's an extremely traumatic, desperate time for a family.

Especially if she was an only child, and there would be no other chance for grandchildren, and/or the husband suddenly realized he longed for child, a part of her to continue on, the consideration isn't totally awful. As someone else said, they're not "making" her a parent. She's dead. They were merely trying to create a positive from a negative.

Apparently, some soldiers and their wives bank sperm in case something happens. There's not much difference, as far as the "creating a child without one parent" argument.

Years ago, a young neighbor of mine collapsed of a brain hemorrage while pregnant - in her second trimester, I believe - and they kept her on life-support for several months so the baby could be delivered healthy. Those were the father's wishes, and I can't see denying him that.

The question of who ultimately owns your body once you die is one that twists most people into knots. Is your spouse or your immediate family truly free to do whatever they want with your body and tissues within reason? If your spouse decides that he/she wants to have children from your tissues, are they free to get your eggs/sperm even if you did not express any desire to have kids prior to your death in writing? And even if you did write it in your will, the fact that you no longer exist means that enforcing what you wanted tends to be at the discretion of whoever gets your body or when the court system steps in. I'm an atheist and I don't particularly care if my family wants to create children out my tissues after my death, but that's just me.

Just because a person didn't specifically express a wish or preference, doesn't mean they wouldn't have. For that reason, great discretion is usually given to the family with regards to what they *think* the person would've ultimately wanted, given those circumstances. My brother was not an organ donor, for instance. He didn't have a driver's license, so his wishes were never expressed. It was left to the family to decide whether that would be ok or objectionable to him.

My guess is that the parents believed that, although she hadn't been planning on children at age 30, she would've ultimately wanted them, and, at any rate, wouldn't have had a problem leaving that gift to her husband.

There's also the fact that producing eggs for donation requires a few weeks (at the minimum) for the donor to be treated with a varying cocktail of fertility drugs. It's not a simple process, and it has the potential for side effects that would, indeed, hasten death -- something doctors try to avoid if they're dealing with a patient who isn't in a state of acute physical suffering. Not to mention the fact that there's no one-size-fits-all approach to the matter; each woman reacts differently to the drugs, and typically the cocktail is adjusted constantly throughout the regime. Throw in the fact that this woman would be 1) unable to communicate anything to medical professionals; and 2) would have multiple other drugs in her system that are not typically used by women undergoing fertility treatment, and I don't see many fertility doctors jumping at the chance to break this new ground. Whatever you think of the ethics, extracting sperm from a dying body is pretty much like extracting any other organ; extracting eggs is not.

That having been said, I think we're talking about a family out of its mind with grief who reacted emotionally rather than logically. I don't think they're awful, but I think the doctors made the right call. I do wonder, though, how things might have gone differently if both she and the husband had expressed a strong desire to have kids.

If you want to equate this directly with organ donation, here's a hypothetical case that I expect one day will be an actual one. Ovarian transplants have been shown to be successful; there are multiple women with premature ovarian failure who have undergone ovarian transplants from their sisters, and then conceived and given birth the old-fashioned way, to children who were legally and socially their own and who were their parents' genetic grandchildren. What if this family had included one other adult child -- a married daughter with premature ovarian failure who was otherwise healthy -- and had asked that the dying daughter's ovary be transplanted into the living daughter? You're not talking about weeks of treatment there -- just a donation of an organ, to presumably be used to create a child or children with a living woman who would bear them and raise them. Just throwing that out there...

@Hey Skipper: "Now, tell me in which way agreeing to this would have been awful, to whom, and why."

Because you are creating a child you know will be motherless.

...

Is it really fair to a kid to always know that it was born because its mother was dying. The kid would only know the mother through pictures and family stories.

Never mind the shaky assumption that the father could not remarry. Like it or not, eligible men with children can get married a lot easier than women in the same situation.

In this case, it would be posthumous parenthood without consent.

What seems obvious at first glance really isn’t. In the absence of a previous decision, you could just as easily turn this on its head. Deciding not to take one of her eggs would be posthumous non-parenthood without consent.

Since there is no such thing as a non-decision here, which is it?

To put it back on the organ-donor foot, assume the same thing: she hadn’t made her wishes known. What is your choice: organ donor without her consent, or non-donor without her consent?

I am glad the doctors logic prevailed.

I am with Marion too though, the sudden death of a family member and the subsequent grief process is incredibly stressful for families.

I don't see organ donations and egg harvesting as the same thing morally, but Marion does bring up an excellent hypothetical, yet, it would probably fall more under the category of an organ donation (and a feel good story) than harvesting the eggs alone without permission to produce future offspring without consent.

This brings to mind a quote from the book Brave New World, when the children are visiting the "hatchery" where humans are "decanted" and the word Mother is considered obscene:

"Mother, monogamy, romance. High spurts the fountain; fierce and foamy the wild jet. The urge has but a single outlet. My love, my baby. No wonder those poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn’t allow them to take things easily, didn’t allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey, what with the temptations and the lonely remorses, what with all the diseases and the endless isolating pain, what with the uncertainties and the poverty—they were forced to feel strongly. And feeling strongly (and strongly, what was more, in solitude, in hopelessly individual isolation), how could they be stable?" - Huxley

I think the doctors made the right decision here.

This doesnt suprise me that much. I'm not sure if it can be said for peoples ethics in this area of NewEngland (i'm in CT on MA border) but thats something certain people in my family would do, sadly. In defense of myself, I've been told I have a west coast personality, ...once. =)

> Who would prefer, presumably, not to exist?

Why wouldn't you think so? This is a major fault in the way people think about babies. People think that pre-conception, all the little baby-souls are in a kind of concentration camp, clawing at the fence, begging to be made alive... Even though they don't, y'know, EXIST, and it's silly to ascribe aspirations to them. Because after all, once they're born, the sure do want to be alive, don't they? Of course they do...

Except that every organism has all sorts of built-in systems that compel it to survive at all costs, and humans are no exception. But humans have the judgment to know when they've been fucked over, and the judgment to resent 'parents' who don't love them enough to give them a family worth growing up in.

> In the absence of a previous decision,
> you could just as easily turn this
> on its head.

That's preposterous. Tom Cruise could suggest, in the absence of a previous decision, that the woman had actually meant to leave here entire estate to the Church™ of Scientology®.

"Deciding not to take one of her eggs would be posthumous non-parenthood without consent."

Okay, so let's just say they knew she wanted to have children, given complexity of the situation - what were her thoughts be then? Would she still want to have her eggs harvested and given away to her husband (and maybe his poor choice of a partner) to be raised without any input or involvement in the process whatsoever?

For myself, I would think this particular change of circumstances would factor heavily in my decision. There was a game change.

"Would she still want to have her eggs harvested and given away to her husband (and maybe his poor choice of a partner) to be raised without any input or involvement in the process whatsoever?

For myself, I would think this particular change of circumstances would factor heavily in my decision. There was a game change."

Yes, but it doesn't really matter what the rest of us would do. Some people are adamantly opposed to organ donation, while others are for it.

That's why these kinds of decisions are left up to the family, those closest to her, who presumably would know or could predict her wishes. She might, in fact, have said, "If I die, harvest my eggs". Just as many of us say, "Don't resuscitate" or "Please keep me alive at all costs."

I can see why the doctors made the decision they did in this case, but it would be interesting to know if they'd have chosen differently if her family declared with certainty that she wanted her eggs given to her husband.

> it doesn't really matter what the
> rest of us would do

So why discuss it at all?

Are we forbidden to pass judgment on people's procreational impulses, even when they carve out gametes from the bodies of the comatose without consent?

We've seen that you can be precious about such things in earlier contexts. But I mean, like, shit fuck.

Juliana nailed it with a single word in the first comment.

Of course, we can discuss it all we want, but I'm pretty sure the outcome would've be different if there'd been a consensus among her family regarding what she wanted done with her eggs, just as it likely would be with a man who requested his sperm be saved.

The doctors seem to only have qualms because they weren't sure this would be her wishes. If the husband had been certain - for instance, if they'd been trying to conceive, and she told him, "If I don't make it, harvest my eggs, so you can go on and have that family we dreamed of," I'm guessing the doctors would've done it.

"Yes, but it doesn't really matter what the rest of us would do."

Well, it kinda does since this would set a precedence for how things would work in the future with non-consent and I find that a little scary given our current healthcare situation.

"That's why these kinds of decisions are left up to the family, those closest to her, who presumably would know or could predict her wishes."

This is a far cry from pulling the plug, LS. It involves an impossible prediction on account that 1) she never said she wanted her eggs harvested from her body, and 2) she never said she wanted her eggs harvested from her body. Quite frankly, I am pretty sure it never occurred to her - for all you know she could have held the same position as MOST of the posters commenting here today about how it is an ethical and moral no-no.

"She might, in fact, have said, "If I die, harvest my eggs".

Unlikely, but we could sit here and make up "what if's" (your favorite game) all day. The FACT is she DID NOT say it. No permisso, hermana!

That's preposterous. Tom Cruise could suggest, in the absence of a previous decision ...

Not the same thing at all.

There must be a decision, and no matter which one it is, there is no prior consent.

You want it neither way.

Many, many people will lay claim to her resources in the last hours... And there must be a decision....

"1) she never said she wanted her eggs harvested from her body, and 2) she never said she wanted her eggs harvested from her body. Quite frankly, I am pretty sure it never occurred to her..."

I agree with you, Feebie. In this case, they absolutely did the right thing.

My point was just that it would be different if she HAD made her wishes clear. It doesn't matter how anybody else would've chosen, her last wishes are hers. I doubt the doctors would've refused to harvest her eggs if her family was certain of her wishes.

Sounds to me like the grief-stricken parents had the impulse, and the husband was willing to go along, but that wasn't clear enough...and it definitely shouldn't be. None of them really knew what she would've wanted.

But if a guy, for instance, realized he might not make it, and said to his wife, "Save my sperm. Have my baby." They'd probably honor that, especially if there were witnesses.

So, it's not an ethical problem of harvesting reproductive material after death. Any of us can leave that to anybody we want, just like organs. It's needing to be sure of those wishes that's the issue.

> It doesn't matter how anybody else
> would've chosen, her last wishes
> are hers.

I hear you, but there's nothing sacrosanct about last wishes, any more than with first wishes or middle wishes. It sounds it would be neat to tell people at the end of their lives that they can have whatever they want... but they might want some bad things. The inheritance laws we have now are based on precedent going back thousands of years. They're not impulsive. (Except to the United States government, which has recently staked a bold [and redundant]new claim to the achievements of your lifetime.)

Feebie:

The FACT is she DID NOT say it. No permisso, hermana!

So, to be clear, her family could not give their permission for her to an organ donor either.

Right?

True, crid, but not everyone feels as fervently as you that single parenthood should be a crime...or forbidden whenever possible. Not everyone sees it as a predetermined failure.

If we forbid a woman from leaving her eggs to her husband because it could result in a motherless child, we'd have to terminate the pregnancy of the brain-dead woman for the SAME REASON. I doubt most hospital staff will have the stomach to tell a grieving widower that they're going to have to kill his unborn child for the social good.

It's also pretty presumptious to assume he'll never remarry or that, if he does, she'll be a horrible person and/or the child will have a terrible life. We just can't base policy on presumptions like that.

I wonder if the scenario were slightly different what people would say. My brother and his wife stored embryo's to try in vitro. What if she should die. Does he have the right to have those embryos placed in a surrogate or future wife or are do they get destroyed?

I'd love to hear the conversation where he asks the future wife to carry them. lol

"Right?"

Taking a lump of flesh and doing nothing else to it but plunking it down into another human is completely different than taking out cells, injecting them with a fertilizer and creating a new life.

This is not the same thing. When I am dead I could care less what my family decides to do to my body parts with the exception of three things:

1) Harvesting my eggs for purposes of creating new life
2) Cloning me or my cells to create another Feebie-bot
3) freezing me and attempting to wake my ass up in a hundred years.

One has to do with conscious matter (life) the other is unconscious matter (organs).

There is a DIFFERENCE.

> Not everyone sees it as a
> predetermined failure.

You could say the same of heroin addiction or rape and murder: 'I was going through a bad time...' You're so pornographically aroused by motherhood, you're even inclined to resist the rhetorical threat of death.

> If we forbid a woman from leaving her eggs
> to her husband because it could result in a
> motherless child, we'd have to terminate
> the pregnancy of the brain-dead woman
> for the SAME REASON

There's no reason to THINK THAT except that it looks cool in CAPITAL LETTERS. The viability of the unborn is a new concern in legal affairs. And there's a vast, vast gulf, in width of practicality and breadth of morality, between a being who actually exists and one who might be caused to exist without even the cognizance of a parent and following incredibly complicated and unspeakably intrusive medical procedures.

"Ghoulish", said Juliana.

Nonetheless, I personally think it would be neat to have a Feebie-bot for whatever purposes I saw fit.

What if she should die. Does he have the right to have those embryos placed in a surrogate or future wife or are do they get destroyed?

Kristen, before their doctors would agree to do anything that might create embryos to freeze, your brother and his wife probably had to sign forms attesting *exactly* what they would want done with any such embryos in the event of their deaths (individual or simultaneous) or divorce. This is why you don't hear about many custody cases over frozen embryos, even though infertility has helped wreck many a marriage. Which means your brother has the right to do whatever he and his wife agreed to do with those embryos, and a court would probably not take kindly to any attempt on his part to alter that at a later date.

Which has me thinking....Unlike the poor woman who was the focus of this case, I have expressed my wishes to become a parent at some point in my life, on multiple occasions. Now, I'm not an only child; my parents' hope for grandchildren does not rest solely on my head. However, even though I've expressed my wishes for what to do with the rest of my body in the event of my untimely demise (i.e. donate everything useable), I haven't discussed my preference with the parents or the husband for what would be done with my ovaries. I think the husband and I are going to have a discussion at some point in the near future about the fate of our gametes/reproductive cells in the event of either of us being reduced to a brain-dead state. (I'm hoping that the husband and I both stay hale and hearty and get the chance to co-mingle our DNA on our own, but life has the potential for nasty surprises.)

"Nonetheless, I personally think it would be neat to have a Feebie-bot for whatever purposes I saw fit."

Wicked man.

> your brother and his wife probably had to
> sign forms attesting *exactly* what they
> would want done with any such embryos
> in the event of their deaths

Important point. Like I said, these issues are young....

Off-topic-snarky-jab:

Where is Patrick?...I have an article for him:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/health/policy/18health.html?_r=1&ref=politics

"When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”"

Okay, back to regularly scheduled programming...

There is a DIFFERENCE.

For you there is, and you have made that difference known.

Fine, but from the post, here is the nut graf:

They weighed her wishes and the medical consequences of an experimental procedure with no guarantee of success. The doctors discovered that the unconscious woman had never expressed a strong desire to have children. And they knew that harvesting eggs could hasten her death.

They weighed wishes they didn't know.

I'll repeat that: They weighed wishes they didn't know.

That is fatuous on its face, nonsense of the very first order. The absence of information doesn't get any closer to no than yes.

They then compounded the error by fetishizing a pulse rate. This woman was brain dead, and was going to die soon in any event.

For all of you who think the doctors got this one right, you better think Terry Schiavo should still be on a feeding tube.

So how is this awful, while organ donation is OK?
Posted by: Hey Skipper

Better question

So how is this awful, while sperm banks selling to unwed women is OK?

@lujlp: "So how is this awful, while sperm banks selling to unwed women is OK?"
_______________

Both are awful in that they deprive children of a parent deliberately. But there is one difference... the donor did consent.

> I'll repeat that: They weighed wishes
> they didn't know.

Don't repeat it when you got it wrong. I think you're caught up in that whole 'absence-of-evidence versus evidence-of-absence' thing. They didn't weigh "wishes they didn't know." They considered unknowns.

Their are guiding principles in such circumstances: First, do no harm. Ain't no reason to be diggin' 'round in this woman's cooter.

Good for the docs. Requesting a dying woman's eggs for fertilization is the height of frivolity and moral decadence.

These idiots should be glad that the docs didn't simply tell them to fuck off.

lujlp, it's all awful. There are several reports out now on how people's need for their "own" baby has led to another kind of fucked-up adult.

People want to know where they came from. Doesn't matter how much their parents wanted them. Whether they were adopted or the result of a passionless experiment, they want to know. We love to mess up our minds wondering what's wrong with us. It's what people do, apparently.

Who wants to find out their mother was a brain-dead body kept alive until her eggs could be harvested, even with her written and totally legal consent?

"For you there is, and you have made that difference known."

Yes, aside from being creepy - it also sets up a very weird precedence in medicine that I really don't care to have rolling around in our courts 20, 30 or 50 years from now.

Given Obamacare, and the rate at which our freedoms being eroded (light bulbs, they are banning light bulbs now for Christ's sakes), do we really care to throw in the creation of life by a non-consenting donor in the mix?

So it's not just a moral and ethical view from my own perspective. This is one thing I'd like to keep as far away from government hands as possible - since, it's not too long until those doctors will be working for the government and all.

I certainly maybe mistaken. My understanding is unless there is a living will or something like that, the spouse can give consent to anything the person themselves would be able to (again, provided there is not a living will stating otherwise). Thus, while she did give consent, the husband could giver her consent. Presumably she never thought she would be in this position and so should give a decision beforehand. Thus, legally her consent could have been given though possibly not morally.

I know there is at least some authority because that was a big point in the gay marriage campaign. A woman was dieing and the medical people decided to let her parents decided what to do instead of her partner. Apparently if they had been married it would be the partner to make those choices.

What a sad situation. As someone in the midst of grief over tragic losses in my own life a different sort, I'm empathetic to this family and understand their desire to preserve some part of someone lost.

Grief clouds our decision-making, especially in the short term (stunned, numb, etc are accurate adjectives in my experience). My guess is the family's request regarding the eggs was not a considered decision, but a reactionary one. From this read, the doctors did the right thing and recommended the humane course of action. Stringing things out to potentially produce eggs that might have led to children who would have been born with an enormous burden seems wrong to me. It seems a good thing that did not happen.

In a tragic situation, people have a response to try to make it less tragic however they can; I suspect the thought of trying enable this woman to be the egg donor to her children was the product of that kind of thinking. I don't blame the family for entertaining the thought; when things are really fucking awful, you grasp around for stuff you can hold on to, and your choices are not always wise. To me this is one of those situations where I'm happy that it's not simply the emotion-driven input of family that is decisive; it really helps to have professionals who are not so deeply emotionally invested in the choice to help guide things.

"People want to know where they came from. Doesn't matter how much their parents wanted them. Whether they were adopted or the result of a passionless experiment, they want to know. We love to mess up our minds wondering what's wrong with us. It's what people do, apparently."

It's really bizarre to diagnose this potential child as fucked up. Our love of psychonalysis - and analysizing everyone else - has apparently hit a new low when we're already analyzing the unborn.

The child of the brain dead pregnant woman isn't messed up. She's 14. Her dad remarried a nice lady, had a few more kids, and she seems to have a happy, stable life.

If they tell the story the horrific way you tell it, she might've been a mess, but anybody with a grain of parental sense wouldn't say, "the ONLY reason you're alive..." or "Where you come from is an ovary..."

They'd tell her she was the miracle that came out of that tragedy. Mothers routinely died during childbirth, throughout history, yet I've seen no studies showing their kids turned out emotionally messed up.

Probably because we didn't know how to mess them up quite as well as we do now. Nobody knew any psychobabble then, and people weren't trained to engage in introspective self-torture. It's not what "we people" do...only the last few generations have been this self-absorbed and idle enough to do it.

> I'll repeat that: They weighed wishes > they didn't know.

Don't repeat it when you got it wrong. I think you're caught up in that whole 'absence-of-evidence versus evidence-of-absence' thing. They didn't weigh "wishes they didn't know." They considered unknowns.

Someone hands you a paper bag and tells you there is a pool ball in it,
then asks you the color.

Since there is no evidence available to you, the only correct answer is “I don’t know.”

However, the absence of evidence that prevents you from knowing the color is not evidence the pool ball has no color.

Just so here. The doctors had absolutely no evidence about this woman’s desire to have children, although they could be certain that she had one. Ponder that “unknown” all you want, it is still an empty exercise. Moreover, they turned it into a fool’s errand by not considering for a moment what that woman’s answer might have been given foreknowledge of her predicament.

Instead, they concocted certainty out of nothing, and decided against a routine procedure that could not have harmed this woman any meaningful way.

If the doctors’ decision makes sense to you, then you must also agree that in every case where organ donation is possible, but the person in question has not voiced a preference, organ donation is prohibited, regardless of the family’s wishes.

And you must also conclude that Mr. Schiavo had no standing to have his wife’s feeding tube withdrawn.

Clearly many people would not decide to do this themselves; that’s fine, freedom is like that. But there is no morally consistent argument that allows organ donation, or pulling feeding tubes, in the absence of stated preference on the one hand, and prohibiting harvesting eggs on the other.

Thanks to the Schiavo schlamozzle, I have a health care directive. Obviously, it can’t foretell every exigency, so I added this tag line:

“Irrespective of the contents of this directive, my health care agent’s decisions are paramount, even if they do not correspond to my wishes stated above.”

Just in case someone thinks having MD tacked onto their name means they get to substitute their judgment for my wife’s.

> However, the absence of evidence that
> prevents you from knowing the color is
> not evidence the pool ball has no color.

You're assuming there's a pool ball because they told you so, just as you assume this woman had feelings about having eggs preserved because you were told so... But there's not other reason to think so.

There was a comment about adoption that touched on this a few months ago, but I have time to find it right now. It works like this: Doctors tend to think very clearly about who is their patient and who is not.

> Instead, they concocted certainty out of nothing,

No they regard a "nothing" as an insufficient challenge to what they could see with their own eyes. An imaginary child would not be their patient, certainly at an hour when their very real patient is ailing.

> But there is no morally consistent argument that
> allows organ donation, or pulling feeding tubes,
> in the absence of stated preference on the one
> hand, and prohibiting harvesting eggs
> on the other.

You're needlessly bedazzled by complexities not in evidence.

Listen, if anyone has any questions about organ donation, pulling feeding tunes, or harvesting eggs, just ask.... Me.

But there is no morally consistent argument that allows organ donation, or pulling feeding tubes, in the absence of stated preference on the one hand, and prohibiting harvesting eggs on the other.

I see where you are coming from here, but you are not correct; I think it entirely consistent morally to require higher levels of certainty in some situations than others. Consider, our legal standards. We require a higher level of certainty to put someone in jail – "beyond a reasonable doubt" – than to win a civil verdict – "a preponderance of the evidence". There are many such examples, but the legal one is widely known and accepted as being morally correct; before we take away a man's freedom, we want to be quite certain we're right.

For me the moral reasoning in this case falls along similar lines. It seems entirely correct to me to require a higher degree of certainty about the woman's wishes with respect to harvesting her eggs – with the potential to create new lives that the woman may never have desired – than in donating her organs – which can only prolong or improve existing lives. You are free to disagree with this reasoning, but creating new life is a decision that I'd prefer to be done only with the clear consent of both the man and woman involved. In this case, that clear consent was lacking.

Hey Skipper, you're losing me now. Harvesting eggs to have a baby is very different from taking someone off of life support or donating organs. I'm not really quite sure any longer what your point is. If I were to be brain dead, I'd want my loved ones to pull the plug. I'd want them to donate whatever organs could be used to help another living being. Taking my eggs and creating a life is a completely different thing and I wouldn't want my spouse or family harvesting eggs and creating a life out of some sense of keeping me alive.

crid:

You're assuming there's a pool ball because they told you so, just as you assume this woman had feelings about having eggs preserved because you were told so

There must be an analogy for the problems associated with arguing by analogy.

The pool ball exists: it is the question itself; it exists because we asked it.

Its color is the answer, which could range from positively yes to absolutely no. Most likely, though it is null. After all, what are the odds she gave the issue a moment's thought in her entire life?

I don't assume any particular answer, or even that an answer ever existed. In this case, absence of evidence is not evidence of presence or absence.

However, presumptuously and fatuously, the doctors did: no amount of pondering, no matter how many chins get scratched in the process, gets from unknowable to known.

Christopher:

For me the moral reasoning in this case falls along similar lines. It seems entirely correct to me to require a higher degree of certainty about the woman's wishes with respect to harvesting her eggs – with the potential to create new lives that the woman may never have desired – than in donating her organs.

This means you place a higher moral threshold against creating one or two new lives than in favor of preserving or enhancing perhaps a dozen (corneas, heart, kidneys, liver, ligaments, lungs etc ...)

I respect your moral conclusion, but I think you would have a hard time substantiating the reasoning behind it.

That is no insult, BTW. Morality would be a lot easier if it was easy to align conclusion and reason.

> The pool ball exists: it is the
> question itself; it exists because
> we asked it.

Huh? Kant that ain't.

So her opinion exists? The comatose woman had an opinion because her family says she did?

No reason to think so. If I were a doctor with a patient as my first concern, and a bunch of swarming family came expressing CARNAL interest in her most intimate resources, I'd move carefully indeed.

The discussion mentioned earlier.

Doctors are very good at distinguishing the people for who they are responsible from others, even when the others AREN'T imaginary.

Or for whom. Wuddever

crid:

So her opinion exists? The comatose woman had an opinion because her family says she did?

Quoting from my comment immediately above:

Its color is the answer, which could range from positively yes to absolutely no. Most likely, though it is null. After all, what are the odds she gave the issue a moment's thought in her entire life?

However, her family is in a far better position than doctors to guess what the answer would have been had the question arisen. Its not as if there is any monetary gain to be had here; there is no chance of commodifying this woman's eggs.

(E.g.: If this woman was the most beautiful that had ever lived, and her family wanted to turn her into an egg farm, that would raise serious moral concerns. Which would happen to be exactly the same as those facing embryonic stem cell research. Which I'll bet Amy favors, while not recognizing the jaw-slackening incoherence of that position.)

Clearly, as with most on this thread, you place a higher barrier against creating a life or two than preserving or enhancing a dozen.

In this regard, why is a heart less intimate than an egg?

And, how can you justify the doctors stepping in on this, while allowing Terry Schiavo's feeding tube to be pulled?

(To be clear, I don't think doctors get a vote in either case.)

This means you place a higher moral threshold against creating one or two new lives than in favor of preserving or enhancing perhaps a dozen

Yes, in fact, I do differentiate between saving/enhancing lives that are already here on this earth -- breathing and thinking and experiencing away -- and creating brand-new ones from scratch that would not otherwise exist. Yes, people, once they are created, generally prefer existence over non-existence. I fully admit that. That doesn't mean I'm thrilled that a doctor transferred six embryos into an unstable woman and created octuplets. It also doesn't mean that I'm joyous when a 14-year-old gets pregnant. And it doesn't mean that I support the creation of new people that would require harvesting eggs from a dying woman who has never expressed a stated wish to have children. The Catholic Church is staunchly against abortion, but opposes IVF, because, while it is against stopping life once that life has been created, it does not support the creation of new life through all methods and in all circumstances. While not everyone here agrees with the Church on abortion and IVF, I think many of us agree that one can distinguish between existing life and life not yet created.

My guess is that the parents believed that, although she hadn't been planning on children at age 30, she would've ultimately wanted them, and, at any rate, wouldn't have had a problem leaving that gift to her husband.

lovelysoul, my husband and I discussed this issue yesterday. Some background: My husband most definitely wants children, biological or adopted. We hope to start a family sooner rather than later. Put it another way: If he ran the universe, I would be pregnant right now (with my full agreement). But his reaction to the idea of me taking sperm from his dying body in order to conceive a child was revulsion -- not just at the mechanics of the process, but at the prospect of a child, his child, being created with no active participation/role by him. For him, there would be a difference between leaving me already pregnant, versus leaving me non-pregnant but with the potential of conceiving his child. (And, BTW, my husband wants to be an organ donor should he be able to, so it's not a desire to be buried "whole" or anything similar.)

And I'll point out something else: This wasn't a 21-year-old frat boy who was still consumed with getting laid/drunk, this was a married woman in her 30s. She was on the Pill, meaning she had to visit her OB/GYN yearly; I can guarantee you that at some point that doctor gently indicated to her that if she wanted kids, she might want to start thinking about getting off birth control. I can guarantee you that she attended multiple baby showers, and had multiple friends discuss their kids or their childbearing hopes/plans around her. I can guarantee you that she had at least a couple of unmarried friends bemoaning their fears about their biological clocks to or at least around her. She had a family who was, presumably, looking for *any* evidence that she *ever* indicated to someone that she was definitely hoping to have kids. And yet they found NOTHING -- not even a discussion with her husband in which they talked about what their hypothetical kids might be like? That says a lot to me, and I bet it did to them, too. I'm not saying that this woman had definitely ruled out ever having kids in her heart of hearts, but there's a big difference between that and knowing that she definitely wanted to have kids at some point in her life.

> However, her family is in a far better
> position than doctors to guess what the
> answer would have been

If all that's available from anyone is a "guess", doctors are of course correct to focus on the health of their patients rather than imaginary children.

> Clearly, as with most on this thread, you
> place a higher barrier against creating
> a life or two than preserving or
> enhancing a dozen.

I'm not sure you understand the importance of logic in these discussions.

> how can you justify the doctors stepping
> in on this, while allowing Terry Schiavo's
> feeding tube to be pulled?

I can't imagine what one thing has to do with the other.

marion:

That doesn't mean I'm thrilled that a doctor transferred six embryos into an unstable woman and created octuplets. It also doesn't mean that I'm joyous when a 14-year-old gets pregnant. And it doesn't mean that I support the creation of new people that would require harvesting eggs from a dying woman who has never expressed a stated wish to have children.

The question here is whether your degree of thrilledness is determinative regarding others' decisions in a free society.

I will bet that almost everyone on this thread who believes that the doctors not only made the right call (a matter of personal preference), but also have the power to make that call, also think that Mr. Schiavo was the ultimate authority regarding Terry's corporeal fate.

For those that adequately describes, you are left with the task of justifying how it is wrong to harvest some eggs from a woman -- a commonplace enough and completely legal procedure -- but it is OK to kill her.

crid:

If all that's available from anyone is a "guess", doctors are of course correct to focus on the health of their patients rather than imaginary children.

Did you read the article Amy cited?

> whether your degree of thrilledness
> is determinative

Are you spending the summer in a colloquium at the Sorbonne, having sex with misshapen people who smoke cigarettes with backwards fists and contend that the text has no meaning? Commodified determinative thrilledness?

> Did you read the article Amy cited?

No. I usually don't. Did the doctors have legal documentation of her wishes?

> Did you read the article Amy cited?

No. I usually don't. Did the doctors have legal documentation of her wishes?

Sometimes I just adore Crid! Really!

This means you place a higher moral threshold against creating one or two new lives than in favor of preserving or enhancing perhaps a dozen (corneas, heart, kidneys, liver, ligaments, lungs etc ...)

I respect your moral conclusion, but I think you would have a hard time substantiating the reasoning behind it.

There are limits to pure logic; all reasoning, from the purest mathematics or symbolic logic to the messier reasoning about human affairs, must start from assumptions.

My assumption in this case is that the decision to make new people should be the product of mutual consent on the part of the man and woman who will contribute the egg and sperm to create the new life.

I consider creating new lives to be fundamentally different than preserving existing ones. To me than the decision about what is to be done with organs of a person in a persistent vegetative state, someone who is no longer there in any meaningful sense, and therefore no longer needs them, is rightfully the decision of one's next of kin, even in the absence of clearly expressed wishes regarding that one way or another.

Because you consider something analogous that I do not - you consider harvesting eggs to create new lives to be no different morally than donating kidneys, a liver or corneas – you arrive at a different conclusion. This does not have the effect of invalidating my reasoning. It simply means that we have made or reasoning from different assumptions.

Actually, I wasn't in favor of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube being pulled, because I didn't find Michael Schiavo's assertions that she didn't want to be kept alive with a feeding tube to be credible, given that they only came AFTER he won a malpractice judgment for millions of dollars following a trial in which he claimed he didn't want the money for himself, he wanted it to take care of Terri. Etc. But you know what? A court disagreed with me and found there to be credible evidence that Terri Schiavo would not have objected to having her feeding tube removed. Which is why Michael Schiavo was allowed to have it removed. He wasn't just able to say, "Hey, remove this tube, and screw my in-laws, thanks!" -- other parties weighed in.

I mention this not because I think that the Schiavo situation and the one Amy is discussing are the same. I don't. But I think the reason they're being compared is this notion that a family's wishes are typically the absolute last word when it comes to the fate of part or all of a dying person. That's not necessarily true, especially when doctors disagree with the course of action urged on by the family.

And I did read the article to which Amy linked, and I do not disagree with Crid's assessment of the situation. The best they could do was to guess about how this woman felt about children, and the evidence they had indicated that she had not expressed a specific desire to have children. Do you think that, for most people, the default state of affairs is a desire to reproduce? I don't think we're safe in assuming that, and I say that as someone who strongly wants to have kids myself. I also don't think we're safe in assuming that someone who wants to have kids is comfortable with those kids being created after his/her death.

The ultimate lesson of this story? Let your loved ones know *specifically* how you feel about what should be done with your gametes/reproductive organs in the event of your death, as the day may quickly come when that is an issue. I'm thinking of asking that my ovaries be frozen and then later used to create a race of super-soldiers to defend the Earth against alien invasion, but that's just me.

Marion:

But you know what? A court disagreed with me and found there to be credible evidence that Terri Schiavo would not have objected to having her feeding tube removed.

Wrong.

The effect of all the court decisions was to affirm that, as legal guardian, the decision was Mr. Schiavo's to make, period.

It is also worth noting that Mr. Schiavo was offered $1M to relinquish legal guardianship.

He refused.

> Did you read the article Amy cited?

No. I usually don't. Did the doctors have legal documentation of her wishes?

When you said "... doctors are of course correct to focus on the health of their patients rather than imaginary children." you made it crystal clear you hadn't bothered.

Christopher:

There are limits to pure logic; all reasoning, from the purest mathematics or symbolic logic to the messier reasoning about human affairs, must start from assumptions.

I don't think we are getting within shouting distance of those limits.

You have a preference, but no reason to impose that preference upon others.

No one knows what Terry Schiavo really would have wanted. It is a question without an answer.

In the case of someone who is about to die, but has not made any statement about being an organ donor, no one knows what that person really would have wanted.

For this woman, there is no answer, either.

No, I don't think the default answer is desire to reproduce, although it is a fact for which Amy will be grateful in her old age, roughly 80% of women do so.

So the doctors not only disregarded what the family said, they also decided against the odds.

There is nothing morally unique about this case. The only question is whether you prefer the family be allowed to make these decisions, or doctors.

Slippery slope here- While we're in this woman's reproductive organs digging out souvenirs for her mother, why don't we grab a few extras to sell and offset the price of the procedure? I mean really, what's the harm in it?

(Sorry if nobody recognizes my sarcasm, but that's what it looks like.)

Does the wannabe-grandmother honestly think that a child born of a long-dead mother will bring her closure and healing? More likely, it will prolong her mourning, resurrecting it every time she sees the child and is reminded all the more. There's grieving, then there's irrational behavior. If you're lucky, you have people around to stop you when you go this route.

Goddammit, I knew it. I KNEW there was no point in reading the whole article.

> you made it crystal clear you
> hadn't bothered

Nothing in that piece –not a syllable, not a single punctuation mark– contradicts my comment, or even reflects on it in any meaningful way. Here it is again... Enjoy!—

If all that's available from anyone is a "guess", doctors are of course correct to focus on the health of their patients rather than imaginary children.

Never waste my time again, OK? You owe me 1,074 words and about 2¼ minutes. And I have other problems with you, too.

> no one knows what that person
> really would have wanted.

Many of us don't much care, either.

Will someone please tell me what this has to do with Terry Schiavo? I mean, is the theme "people near death"? Or is it "morally blind comments"?

Ah, Marion comes through:

> the reason they're being compared
> is this notion that a family's wishes
> are typically the absolute last word

More differences than similarities. But I wonder if the person who offered Mr Schiavo that million dollars thought of giving it to the community which provided her care as compensation for the preposterous expense. Furthermore, it's my understanding that Schiavo's cardiovascular system had been weakened by years of anorexia nervosa... To some degree, she'd surrendered her claim to health. (I got nothin' against people who conquer this disease: They include a race driver I admire. But I used to smoke cigarettes, and I'll expect that to tamp your sympathy if I ever get lung cancer.)

> The best they could do was to
> guess about how this woman felt

There's that word again, Skippy! The same one you brought to us: "guess".

> Do you think that, for most people,
> the default state of affairs is
> a desire to reproduce?

Especially when those children are to be raised by God-knows-who.

Marion's earlier point about the Catholic church brought to mind a complaint seen in the memoirs of many whose youthful educations were vetted by Rome: The prohibition of masturbation as a waste of sacred sperm. A single session would squander as much potential human life as could populate a continent. The sheer insanity of this thinking, quite aside from the sexual priggishness of it, chased a number of thinkers away from the faith just as their intelligence was jelling. (So to speak.)

Sperm and eggs are just not that big a deal.

I remember a story about how some guy leased his city some central real estate for parkland for a penny a year or something, under the proviso that it could never be used by blacks. Economics and commercial forces happened to ensure that it wasn't a problem while he was alive. But as soon as he died, the city condemned it and reopened it as city property within 30 seconds. No big deal.

If you want to have kids, have some. While you're alive. But do it right, and don't pretend you have absolute authority about what happens when you're gone. There's a death out there for each us, and paperwork won't make yours especially impressive.

You have a preference, but no reason to impose that preference upon others.

I'm not imposing anything. Like all people, I have values and try to approach life in a way consistent with those values.

I've clearly stated where I stand here and why I make the moral distinctions I have done in thinking about this. Now, if I were in charge of everything (a position I'd never want), I'd probably come out against collection of gametes from the brain-dead without their explicit expression of that wish. (Even still, I'd have some reservations, because I am concerned that this procedure would place an awful burden on potential future offspring (other likely home issues are also a concern, but I'll stay concise)). I think we should not make new lives on a whim or because of some anguished desire to carry on a lost life, no matter how much I sympathize with that anguish.

Regardless, I feel pretty strongly about the moral rightness of this statement: "The decision to make new people should be the product of mutual consent on the part of the man and woman who will contribute the egg and sperm to create the new life." This applies to couples trying to conceive, people using medically-augmented methods, and even fools who just fuck without thought as to the consequences. It does not apply to someone who certainly never explicitly asked to have babies made from eggs extracted from her body long after it had the ability to keep itself alive, and as far as we know never even expressed a strong desire for babies in the first place.

No one knows what Terry Schiavo really would have wanted. It is a question without an answer.

Yeah, but she was dead, for all meaningful purposes when her husband decided to pull the tubes. Her corpse want animated by medical science's miracles but the person – the collection of strengths, weaknesses, her sense of humor, what made her angry, her ability to learn and grow; in essence, everything that made her human – was long gone. Her brain was destroyed, there was no possibility of recovery, and our society and laws give the next of kin the right to make decisions in these circumstances. The only reason we know her name is because some zealots decided there were political gains to be made by exploiting that family's pain.

As I wrote previously, you seem to think that making new lives from a corpse is not different in any meaningful moral dimension than donating its kidneys. To me this seems insane. Am I wrong? Kid = kidney?

> To me this seems insane. Am I wrong?
> Kid = kidney?

You're not wrong. Not even a "kid"... Mere germ cells. Not even a zygote. There are people who want to speculate that some previously unmolested egg was going to be the person who cured cancer... It hard seems likely. Eggs just aren't that hard to come by. Individual ones aren't worth tears, even when you're grieving.

The effect of all the court decisions was to affirm that, as legal guardian, the decision was Mr. Schiavo's to make, period.

Schiavo I: http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/trialctorder02-00.pdf

It goes into great detail about the court's assessment of various statements purporting to show Terri Schiavo's wishes about what would be done should she be kept alive solely by life support. The abstract specifically states that the court found the statements supposedly indicating that she would not want to be kept alive to be more credible than those supposedly indicating that she would want to be kept alive. In addition, the court reviewed the medical facts of her case, and ruled that there was no hope for recovery. And yes, there were later rulings...rulings that involved further medical testimony about her hope for recovery, etc. etc. Basically, they say that since there was considered to be no hope for Terri Schiavo's recovery, Michael Schiavo's guardianship was allowed to stand. Again, basically the medical/legal system reviewed the wishes of her next of kin, and judged them acceptable. Not the same thing as saying that next of kin are allowed to make whatever judgments they want in the absence of reliable evidence as to what the patient herself or himself would have wished. And again, I say this as someone who thought that Michael Schiavo should have just filed for divorce and allowed her parents guardianship.

(Side note, Crid: Her autopsy showed no evidence of bulimia.)

I think the bottom line is that the process works as it should - with these complex decisions being made collaboratively between the doctors, who are impartial, and the family, who are emotionally involved. Leaving it solely up to on side or the other would probably not produce the best result.

My parents had no idea how my brother felt about organ donation. I think they, not being terribly religious, didn't believe his opinion mattered much at that point. He was dead, and there was the pressing consideration of others still living who could be helped.

Certainly, if he'd ever expressed revulsion at the idea, they probably would've chosen otherwise. But, in the absence of any evidence, pro or con, the decision was left up to them - and (I believe) they were even offered the first choice of who to donate to. For instance, if we had a family member needing his heart, eyes, or kidneys.

This is, as Crid points out, different from eggs or sperm, but not very different from stem cells, which may ultimately be used for a multitude of things, baby-making included. So, it'll be interesting to see how that will be addressed.

Personally, I wouldn't care if my husband wanted my eggs. I mean, I'll be dead. If he could find some use for them, or any part of me, have at it. I'd trust his judgment. Maybe he'd want to give them to an infertile sister or neice. What possible problem would it be for me?

Crid:

Nothing in that piece –not a syllable, not a single punctuation mark– contradicts my comment, or even reflects on it in any meaningful way. Here it is again... Enjoy!—

Here it is again:

... doctors are of course correct to focus on the health of their patients rather than imaginary children.

Hmmm. Focusing on the health of a brain dead woman.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Will someone please tell me what this has to do with Terry Schiavo?

Okay, I’ll spell it out again.

With Terry Schiavo, in the absence of explicit direction, the ultimate decision to continue life support lay with her legal guardian.

With those who can serve as organ donor, in the absence of explicit direction, the decision lies with the legal guardian.

Now, let’s add a some hypotheticals, none of them improbable.

Let’s say this woman was found to be three weeks pregnant. Who decides whether she carries the fetus to term?

Let’s say this woman was found to be three weeks pregnant, and had explicitly made it clear she never wanted children?

Or, that, in addition to have made it clear she never wanted children, she was also ardently pro-life?

What if she didn’t want children, and was pro-choice?

In each case, there will be a decision; there is no having it neither way.

So, who gets to make the choice? Legal guardian, or doctors?

That is what is at issue here, not whether the ultimate decision was “correct”, because there is no way to arrive at that conclusion.

Marion:

I read pretty extensively on this (Volokh is a great place to see experts discuss legal matters). The effect of the decisions was to, in the absence of explicit direction, defer to the legal guardian. Now, you may well think he should have just filed for divorce. Obviously, you don’t give much weight to the notion that he knew, or believed, his wife would have detested being left in that state.

If anyone tried to harvest my eggs before pulling the plug, I'd haunt them to hell and back.

Do we have to start stating this in our living wills now? "I don't want kids, don't use my eggs?"

Great.

"Do we have to start stating this in our living wills now? "I don't want kids, don't use my eggs?"

We may have to do just that. And also detail who, if anyone, can store our stem cells for future use.

Really, though, the choice to have kids or not is about RAISING children. Being dead pretty much solves that problem. It's kind of weird wanting control beyond the grave of your ovaries or DNA.

This woman may not have wanted to raise a child herself, but she might not have objected to her loved ones keeping a little part of her alive after she's gone. It's a rather sweet sentiment and sign of love for her.

Families generally know best whether this would be objectionable to the deceased or not.

"If he could find some use for them, or any part of me, have at it. I'd trust his judgment."

What could go wrong?

> Her autopsy showed no evidence of bulimia.

Anorexia nervosa, not bulimia. (I don't actually know the difference.) Besides, I didn't say she died of it, I read somewhere that she's had it for years earlier in life... And after X years on a feeding tube, I don't know if the effects would be visible anyway. We're told these diseases often happens to girls from controlling, demanding, intrusive families.

> What possible problem would it be for me?

There are needs of people besides the deceased to be considered.

> Hmmm. Focusing on the health of a
> brain dead woman.
> Yeah, that makes sense.

So you're siding with the family, because once someone gets sick enough, doctor should have no interest in their well-being besides what the family wants. Right? That's the only interpretation by which your sarcasm makes sense.

> So, who gets to make the choice? Legal
> guardian, or doctors?

Laws and customs guide us. Is that a big deal?

> What could go wrong?

In this particular instance? He could succeed.

T'was bulimia, not anorexia, for those of you taking notes.

Let's grab some lunch.

Reviewing this, it's striking that some people wanted to make it about the authority of family in times of health crisis. We can talk about Schiavo if you want... And later, we can get all pissed off about Elian again. And how 'bout that Monica Lewinsky? And what's the deal with Kurt Cobain? And Donna Rice and Fawn Hall?

But I still think Juliana hammered-and-nailed it in the first comment: Ghoulish.

Y'know, if people really wanted to follow through on their implicit presumption here –that immortality is had through progeny– they'd be much, much nicer to the children who they already have. And setting aside for the moment the matter of whether or not such an obsession is simply runaway egotism*— People who really, really loved children would imbue in their own children a love of childbearing such that a woman in her 30's would already have a few kids weeping in the waiting room as she lay comatose in a hospital. Perhaps the vibe of ghoulishness Juliana speaks of was something very much apparent to this woman, such that she choose not to invite others to be tormented by it as well, and the buck stopped with her.

___________________________________

* Though it obviously, obviously is. I mean, shit fuck, peoples.

"People who really, really loved children would imbue in their own children a love of childbearing such that a woman in her 30's would already have a few kids weeping in the waiting room as she lay comatose in a hospital."

C'mon, 30 is not that old. You take her being childless at 30 as definitive proof of her wishes? Maybe she was concentrating on her career first.

What if she'd been 25? Only child. And her husband wants to have the child, realizing now that he'll never get the chance with the woman he loved. If he's up to the task, and wants to take it on, with the blessing and loving help from his inlaws, what business is it really of ours?

My son is 20. Not yet planning for kids yet. But if he married a nice girl, then the unspeakable happened, and she said to me in the hospital that she'd still like to have his baby, I'd probably be on board. It's an act of love.

Plus, my son is extremely bright, so, in all likelihood, we'd be adding another intelligent person to the gene pool...which this world needs more of to counterbalance all the idiots and fanatics who are breeding like rabbits.

At any rate, it seems like a personal family decision. If a family can donate organs, and are willing to pay for whatever procedure would be necessary to harvest sperm/eggs for storage or future use, I don't see what right the doctors have to deny a family that choice if they're unanimous in their belief that the deceased wouldn't object.

> Okay, doctor. But could you at least pull
> out her gold fillings?"
> Posted by: Walter Moore at July 17, 2010 7:49 AM

> "Okay doctor. We understand. By the way, do
> you know any really good taxidermists?"
> Posted by: Walter Moore at July 17, 2010 9:33 AM

Missed those earlier: Handsome work.

> You take her being childless at
> 30 as definitive proof of her
> wishes?

Yes, I certainly do, although that's not the point. That's fifteen years (+/-) of baby-droppin' fertility. And a decade of the kind of adulthood where if you think there might be legal implications for something, you put it down on paper, and maybe call a lawyer. Or at least TALK to someone about it. Besides, Amy said "30's", not 30. This was no spring chicken.

The larger point is that I don't fuckin' care what her "wishes" are. Or were. Death is not some kind of karmic payday full of roulette winnings, when all your dreams come true, however ironically, and you're permitted to burden humanity with projects you never cared enough about to begin. You like to imagine that she "wished" to have a child, and that somehow the rest of us are responsible for making that happen, or that her family should be permitted to set in motion projects lasting into perpetuity. But because she'll soon be DEAD, she can never have a child. And there's nothing precious in her biology that needs to be preserved, no call for extraordinary measures from an unwitting woman. And if she were both an Olympic gold medalist and valedictorian of her class at Yale, I wouldn't feel differently.

I think of all the people who've ever lived and died, uncounted billions of them, and how each had "wishes" that we're unknown and unfulfilled... That's a lot of wishes! But you've never shown any concern for them before now.

> It's an act of love.

That's unspeakably grotesque.

"You like to imagine that she "wished" to have a child, and that somehow the rest of us are responsible for making that happen, or that her family should be permitted to set in motion projects lasting into perpetuity."

I like to imagine that her family wishes to do that, yes. Her wishes are largely rendered mute by her death, unless she's specifically forbidden those she loved from doing this. It's the people left behind who may choose to bring a child about from her DNA, which they eventually will be able to do without harvesting eggs - only a few cells will do.

Ultimately, science isn't likely to forbid a grieving family from creating a "clone" of a loved one, or saving stem cells to possibly help other family members. It will (and should) remain an intimate family decision, made collaboratively with doctors.

"It's an act of love."

It IS an act of love. The desire to pass along genetic material of those we love is what keeps humanity going. Otherwise, we'd have died out long ago. Women, particularly, would stop wanting to bear children at all if there was no emotional attachment - if it was just anybody's DNA they were carrying or would be expected to carry.

> Her wishes are largely rendered mute
> by her death, unless she's specifically
> forbidden those she loved from doing this.

WHHHHAAAAATTT?

Why would you not presume precisely the reverse?

You take my breath away.

Anorexia nervosa, not bulimia. (I don't actually know the difference.) Besides, I didn't say she died of it, I read somewhere that she's had it for years earlier in life…

From what I have read, no one has ever been able to find any clue as to why she collapsed in the first place.

The initial admission examination included looking for signs of domestic violence; none were found.

> So, who gets to make the choice? Legal > guardian, or doctors?

Laws and customs guide us. Is that a big deal?

And the law in this regard is …?

The custom?

Faced with a few simple questions, and you skedaddle.

The larger point is that I don't fuckin' care what her "wishes" are. Or were.

The even larger point is that there is no reason for that woman’s family, even if they were all asleep, to care less than they do already for what you care about, or what you think is grotesque.

Get over yourself.

Because what does it matter to her? Just like my brother...how did it "harm" him to donate his organs? He's DEAD. It wasn't like he still needed them. And it's not as if SHE would be raising the child. Her husband would be. So, unless he has specific cause to believe she would be mortified by this idea - and, presumably, he wouldn't even suggest it, if so, because he knows her better than you, or me, or the doctors - then it's up to him. He's the one who will bear the responsibility of any child that is created.

> From what I have read, no one has ever
> been able to find any clue as to why
> she collapsed in the first place

Google gave you, as they say, "About 228,000 results (0.22 seconds)". Go sick with that, and let us know what you find.

> Faced with a few simple questions, and
> you skedaddle.

Still here! Still think you're bring nutty!

> there is no reason for that woman’s family,
> even if they were all asleep, to care less
> than they do already for what you care
> about, or what you think is grotesque.

The customs are, don't cut deeply into the flesh of a living but sickly woman to fulfill the twisted, pornography-egotistical Master Race fantasies of people who obviously don't have her best interests, or even her most obvious inclinations, in mind.

(What's with the sleep thing?)

> Get over yourself.

Cain't. I'm too good-looking, too insightful, too responsive to my environment to just turn it off and walk away. It's obvious that I'm in important resource in your life... I've been put here for a reason, Skippy.

> how did it "harm" him to donate his organs?
> He's DEAD

If someone wants kids, they can have them. If they don't get around to it, it's because they wanted to give their time and resources to other projects. The giving of life is arguably the most consequential choice a person could make. But with your own, borderline-psychotic, blood-at-all-costs fascination with reproduction, you see an opportunity to be more fascist about it than ever before, and you're not going to let it get away. You going to take that choice away from them when they can't resist, even when it hastens someone's death. You're not into life, you're into pregnancy.

Moon-barking madness.

As I mentioned above, I came far closer to this situation than I care to remember.

Unfortunately, her sister had been killed in a school bus crash.

I happened to know my wife wanted kids, despite making sure she wouldn't have any until she was married.

Nothing in writing, of course.

Had things happened a little sooner, and turned out as badly as they should have, I don't honestly know what I would have said had her mother asked me to do this. I'm also pretty certain my wife would have given the OK.

And told the doctors -- and crid -- to piss off.

Thanks for proving Godwin's Law, BTW.

It takes more than the word "fascist" to invoke Godwin, but don't tempt me. Darlin', if you're gonna advocate ripping germ cells, unbidden, from living people in order to indulge your eugenicist fantasies, you'd better be prepared to be called a lot worse things than that.

I'm composing a few taunts in a special notebook already.

Hi! Home from work!

The most wretched lunacy about this, of course, is how quickly proponents of this madness will stand, with jut-jawed self-righteousness, to affirm the importance of non-blood attachments... Adoption, tolerance... Yet will, without shame or recognition of irony, pretend that these-or-those gametes are so precious that their bearer's life might be foreshortened to harvest them.

> Plus, my son is extremely bright...

You have no understanding of family, Crid. That's why you can view this situation in such a cold, analytical manner. You actually believe her family is like vultures, picking over her body parts, because you're so emotionally detached that's the only way you can see it.

There's no possible way can you relate to the grief of losing a child, since you have none, and seem to believe that having them is just a selfish, ego-driven endeavor...unless it's adoption, perhaps...and by a couple, of course.

I'm not in love with pregnancy. I love family. Right or wrong, the impulse to preserve a part of your bright, beautiful child - by passing along his/her genes, and extending the family - isn't grotesque.

This is part of a brave new world we're entering, where the rules are growing ever more complex, but the impulse is still going to be there because that's precisely what families are built on.

lovelysoul understands how others can approach this from a different starting point, and arrive at a different conclusion.

On the other hand, Crid, when queried, you wouldn't address the implications of allowing doctors to decide what the patient's unstated desires were, probably because you didn't give it a thought before mouthing off, just as he didn't give a thought to how empty a concept "protecting the patient's health" is for a brain dead patient.

And making up what she thought is the sort of "reasoning" most often seen in the fervently religious. Don't be afraid to say "dunno" when it is the right answer.

It takes more than the word "fascist" to invoke Godwin ...

Godwin's Law, for those who aren't familiar with it, which apparently includes crid, states: "as an online discussion grows longer the probability of a comparison with fascism approaches 100%."

... but don't tempt me. Darlin', if you're gonna advocate ripping germ cells, unbidden, from living people in order to indulge your eugenicist fantasies, you'd better be prepared to be called a lot worse things than that.

"Cleanup to cell 3, crid has covered his monitor in spittle again."

Yet will, without shame or recognition of irony, pretend that these-or-those gametes are so precious that their bearer's life might be foreshortened to harvest them. - crid

Crids right. How dare we take any actions which might hasten the death of a lifless brain damaged soon to be corpse.

No one is allowed to die until the allmighty crid has decreeed its time

Removing organs for donation hastens death too. No doctor is going to allow any decision like that to be made before determining there's no hope for life (beyond a vegetative, brain dead state). Crid's argument in that regard is absurd.

> You actually believe her family is like
> vultures, picking over her body parts

It's silly for you to bemoan the detachment of others when you're ready to sacrifice people's lives, under certificate of affirmed love for them, in order to harvest their germ cells for improbably-successful procedures. Have we already covered this?

Yes! This comment stack is circling the drain.

> you wouldn't address the implications of allowing
> doctors to decide what the patient's unstated
> desires were

Only because they're blindingly obvious. (There are similar "implications" I won't address; allowing truck drivers to drink whiskey on the longer runs, allowing nuke plant operators to party hearty with coke and broads on the holiday overnight shift, that kind of thing.) OK, HERE: I think its bad if doctors make choices to the detriment of their patient's well-being because other people have less honorable projects in mind for the tissues of the patient's body.

> the probability of a comparison
> with fascism

Naw, it's not for mere fascists, it's for that very special German kind: It's an important distinction to make. The law's purpose is not to keep certain topics out of dinnertable conversation because they might upset Grandma and Sissy. Godwin is a rebuke to the people you find on the internet who've always assumed that everyone in the world secretly agrees with them, and experience easily bruised feelings the first time the try to express their wacky beliefs. The wounded, resentful cadets think anyone who challenges them must be the worst kind of modern tyrant imaginable, which ain't likely. Until they grow out of their foolishness, we have Godwin.

> Removing organs for donation
> hastens death too.

Gonna need a cite. Name one person, just one, whose death was hastened by lawful, modern, competent organ donation.

(As it happens, I've glimpsed Postrel on the street three times in the last year. She's lookin' good! Vim and vigor, fit as a fiddle, spring in her step, etc.)

"Gonna need a cite. Name one person, just one, whose death was hastened by lawful, modern, competent organ donation."

Seriously? My brother, for one. When you're brain dead, you don't "die". Your body is still living. In fact, they KEEP it living in order to successfully harvest the organs...after which, of course, your physical death is hastened.

He could've lived for years in that vegetative state had my parents not decided that was no kind of life and hastened his death in order to donate his organs. He could've been Terry Schiavo. But it was OUR family's decision to let him go - while harvesting what was of little use to him, his body parts.

Creating Schiavos is not in my interest.... I'm AGAINST these carnal impulses.

It remains the case that what you're talking about is the theft of authority over one's own contributions to the human project. You want to pretend it's a private family matter when it's anything but.

I don't understand why you're saying "Creating Schiavos" Nor am I. That's not in anyone's interest, least of all hers. Yet, that is, in fact, what her family did, since there was no consensus on what she would've wanted.

I'm merely saying that if a family knows their loved one would've wanted their reproductive parts saved and used, after such a tragedy, or at least wouldn't mind, that is within their parameters.

If our family had had any use for my brother's body parts, we could've chosen them first. Give his kidneys to Uncle Bob, who needs a transplant. Or his corneas to cousin Nancy, who's going blind.

It's therefore not "inconceivable" (pardon the pun) that reproductive parts might also be donated in the same manner.

My family, for instance, knows I wouldn't care. If somebody needs something in the scrap heap of my leftover body, they're welcome to it - including my ovaries, if any infertile cousin or sister needed them.

Actually, my younger sister, who is infertile, probably could use them if they weren't overhatched at this point. I have absolutely no use for my eggs after death. I'm not going to be "the parent," so it doesn't concern me in the least, and it really shouldn't concern anyone else.

The "theft of authority over one's own contributions to the human project" sounds a little egotistic and self-important. But if anyone absolutely abhors the idea, they should make their feelings known to those who will be making after death decisions - their family.

> I don't understand why you're saying
> "Creating Schiavos"

Because you have a pornographic, wickedly intrusive and (I contend) psychologically pathological inclination to sustain someone else's dwindling vitality to sooth your own hillbilly fears of mortality. "Ghoulish", said Juliana. Perfect word.

> The "theft of authority over one's own contributions
> to the human project" sounds a little egotistic and
> self-important.

You're cutting into people's living flesh to pursue eugenicist voodoo: What's more egotistical than that?

> But if anyone absolutely abhors the idea, they
> should make their feelings known to those who
> will be making after death decisions - their family.

Obviously, the reverse will hold... It will be opt-in, like every other kind of organ donation. I'd prefer that it be opt-in with a double-secret-probation / permanent-record codicil. So....

So if you want your gametes harvested for someone else to use after your death, you have to go to a midnight ceremony with a city councilman and the county recorder and a monk and a priest and a deacon and the Pope, even if you're not Catholic; you all have to gather around a circle of stones and fire in the woods under a blue moon in springtime at precisely midnight. You have to swear on video and on crinkly yellow parchment signed with your own blood that you're OK with having this done if you're comatose and there's zero chance of recovery. And then you have to specify EXACTLY who the parents of this child will be... No fair deciding that later. And then you have to put enough money in escrow to pay for all the fertilization procedures, the health care costs of the pregnancy, and all expenses incurred in the child's first year of life. After all, he's your kid, so you ought step up. And then copies (notarized with blue foil stamps) have to be registered at the Hague, the United Nations, the First Citizens Bank of Kuala Lampur, and the Modesto, California Convention and Visitor's Bureau. And all this paperwork has to be on file for at least five years before you become ill.

If you do all that I'll be OK with it. (Once I've seen the video.)

It's still psychotic, though.

"Clean up in cell 3; crid has covered his monitor in spittle again."

"It will be opt-in, like every other kind of organ donation."

You're not getting this. It's not only opt in. My brother had no driver's license, so there was no expressed preference. When there's no evidence, the decision for organ donation can be made by the family.

"Because you have a pornographic, wickedly intrusive and (I contend) psychologically pathological inclination to sustain someone else's dwindling vitality to sooth your own hillbilly fears of mortality"

Wow, that's really a tacky comment. "Pornographic"? "Hillbilly fear of mortality?" What does that even MEAN?

My saying that I don't give a crap what happens to my body parts after death hardly indicates a desire for immortality. If that were true, I'd want them enshrined.

And, no, anyone who doesn't have a problem donating reproductive parts doesn't have to declare a parenting plan. That's stupid.

A surviving spouse is good enough. That will be their perogative. It's the surviving family's responsibility to determine how and in what manner any resulting child would be raised.

If my sister, for instance, took my eggs to conceive a child, SHE and HER HUSBAND would be financially responsible for that child.

My husband - being the one entrusted with all sorts of end-of-life decisions, such as pull the plug or don't pull the plug - would also be the one to decide whether to give her my eggs, at such time they are clearly determined to be of no use to me since I'm brain dead.

I will let him know that it's ok - harvest and donate whatever body parts anybody can use - especially my dear sister, who would be a great mom.

Nothing would make me happier to know that some useless part of mine was able to provide her with the joy of becoming a mom. And these are the kind of wishes that people close to me would be aware of. If you don't trust your family to make responsible decisions, according to your wishes, then they shouldn't be in that position.

Any time a baby is born, another baby somewhere dies to make room. That is the Malthusian inevitability. More birth means more death.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/childfreetown/

Is that like an angel getting its wings?

That doesn't make much sense. We'd have no overpopulation if that were true.

Gonna need a cite. Name one person, just one, whose death was hastened by lawful, modern, competent organ donation.
-crid

That is by far the absoultely dumbest thing I have ever seen you write.

EVERY organ doner dies faster as a result of organ donation. Especially when its things like the heart and lungs.

Your slipping crid