BOB ABERNETHY: Now, Perspectives. Today, the moral dilemma of what's called selective reduction. That's the medical procedure of eliminating some fetuses in a multiple pregnancy in order to give the others a better chance to survive. Selective reduction is an increasingly real choice of some pregnant women as fertility drugs, [which] can cause multiple births, become more widely used. When the McCoy family of Carlisle, Iowa, near Des Moines, had difficulty conceiving, Mrs. McCoy took a fertility drug. Now she's expecting septuplets, four boys and three girls. The couple's doctor spoke at a press conference last week.
Unidentified Man: We want to make sure that they're breathing and their circulation are stabilized.
ABERNETHY: Since October 15, Bobbi McCoy, now in her 29th week, has been confined to bed at Iowa Methodist Medical Center. There is no known record of surviving septuplets. Earlier in the pregnancy, doctors advised the McCoys to selectively reduce some of the fetuses. The couple, active in the Missionary Baptist Church, rejected the doctors' advice. Kenny McCoy said, "God gave us those kids. He wants us to raise them."
Well, what are the issues here? Is it ever moral to take some life in order to save others? Reverend Katherine Hancock Ragsdale is an Episcopal priest and the president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Dr. George Isajiw is a family practitioner in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, and a past president of the Catholic Medical Association. Dr. Carl Weiner is a professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, where he is also director at the Center for Advanced Fetal Care.
Dr. Weiner, you do advise selective reduction in some cases with your patients. What's the case for it? Why do you do that?
Dr. CARL P. WEINER (Director, Center for Advanced Fetal Care): Well, the woman who has a high[-risk] or multiple pregnancy is faced with a terrible dilemma. A greatly wanted pregnancy, and yet, there's a reality. The reality is the larger the number of fetuses, the greater the likelihood of a poor outcome for the pregnancy and having no children to bring home, the greater the likelihood of difficulties after delivery in raising those children. A terrible problem.ABERNETHY: And you know those odds pretty well, and you can lay them out for a patient?
Dr. WEINER: It's unfortunately something we have to do regularly. One baby is going to deliver around 40 weeks, two at 36; by the time you get up to five, you're talking 22 weeks with viability beginning somewhere around 24 weeks. And that's just the average.
ABERNETHY: Dr. Isajiw, in a case like this, why not do what Dr. Weiner suggests?
Dr. GEORGE ISAJIW (Catholic Medical Association): Well, first of all, I'd like to congratulate Mrs. McCoy for her rejecting the doctors' advice in this particular case, I don't often advise that. But as we can see, she's in the 29th week, and the chances are, I believe, pretty good for the survival of these children, and certainly they're beyond the point of viability. But the issue here is that human life, each individual personal life, begins at fertilization, at the moment of fertilization, and we, as human persons who have a body and soul and a mortal life and a mortal soul, have a right not to be killed by anyone, and this is the issue, "Thou shalt not kill."
The question is, how do you best facilitate that, and that's where they disagree. I think the overriding principle here is the imperative of making informed moral decisions and not abdicating that responsibility by saying, "Well, there's a rule that applies here," or "We're going to leave it in God's hands." We have a responsibility to be actively engaged in making those moral decisions.
