Ethics and Religion Talk - Pregnant and Brain Dead

In a continuing effort to ensure religious diversity in our column, Ethics and Religion Talk has been looking for new panelists. We welcome a new voice whose responses should begin to appear in the coming weeks, the Reverend Salvatore Sapienza. 

Rev. Sapienza is a minister in the United Church of Christ. A graduate of New York University (NYU) and All Faiths Seminary in New York City, Sapienza has facilitated workshops and retreats around the country. He is also the author of several books, including Mychal's Prayer: Praying with Father Mychal Judge and Childish Thinking: How the Church Keeps Us Stuck in Sunday School. He currently serves as the Senior Pastor of Douglas Congregational United Church of Christ in Saugatuck/Douglas, Michigan (www. DouglasUCC.org).

And now, to this week’s question: In 2014, a Texas law required a pregnant woman to be kept on life support until the fetus is viable (24-26 weeks). Should a pregnant, brain-dead, women be kept on life support against her explicitly stated desire?

The Rev. Sandra Nikkel is head pastor of Conklin Reformed Church.

I agree with this law because I believe God to be the author of life and therefore, the Only one who can end it. Psalm 139:13 describes how closely involved God is in this process: "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb." The word "knit" reflects a hands-on process led by the fingers of God. If God creates life, He's the only one who has the right to end it regardless of how you, I, or anyone else feels about it.    

Father Kevin Niehoff, O.P., is a Dominican priest and serves as Judicial Vicar, Diocese of Grand Rapids. 

This case is challenging and very sensitive. I question whether keeping the pregnant woman on life support to keep the baby alive is a legitimate reason for doing so.

Parents nurture their children in utero. The U.K. National Health Service indicates that the fetus begins to hear at fourteen weeks. This fetus knew through its sense of hearing that its mother did not have a heartbeat. Could proper nutrition be given to a child without a properly functioning digestive system?

I posit it was likely wrong for the State of Texas to intervene. The moral principle of double effect applies to this case. The direct result of removing the mother from life support to fulfill her wishes is her natural death. Yes, the child would have died but not directly intended.

Linda Knieriemen, Senior Pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Holland, responds:

No, I think her wishes should be honored, with one possible exception: the wishes of the father and his ability to care for the child. Otherwise, to mandate that the woman be kept alive until the child is viable hints at the mother’s role as a mere uterus rather than a rationale, ethical decision maker and parent. 

Rev. Ray Lanning is a retired minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America.

In her condition, the woman neither knew nor cared any longer what became of the child she was carrying. The proper focus of concern had become the life of the child. It’s a casus in extremis, far from anything like ordinary circumstances. It’s hard to imagine that any mother would direct that in event of her incapacity, her child should be destroyed, but I must accept the account you give of the situation. You do not say why the courts chose to intervene. Did someone else with a personal stake in the matter request it? As a bystander, I can only express the profound hope that neither I nor anyone in my family will ever be confronted with such a difficult decision.

The Reverend Colleen Squires, minister at All Souls Community Church of West Michigan, a Unitarian Universalist Congregation, responds:

Unitarian Universalists would advocate for the mother’s explicitly stated desires, whether they are to remove life support or to continue life support until a viable birth is possible. UUs are strong advocates for a person’s right to make their own choices regarding all medical decisions.

Fred Stella is the Pracharak (Outreach Minister) for the West Michigan Hindu Temple

No. For the love of God, no. Never. 

My response:

I’ll go one step beyond the question. Because Judaism believes that the baby in utero has limited rights, equivalent to that of an appendage of the mother, a decision about any extraordinary measures taken to support the life or the breathing/heartbeat of the mother belong to her and her alone. In the absence of a positive statement by the pregnant woman or her medical decision making proxy that she wants to be kept on life support for the sake of the unborn child, it would be a violation of her bodily autonomy to do so.

This column answers questions of Ethics and Religion by submitting them to a multi-faith panel of spiritual leaders in the Grand Rapids area. We’d love to hear about the ordinary ethical questions that come up in the course of your day as well as any questions of religion that you’ve wondered about. Tell us how you resolved an ethical dilemma and see how members of the Ethics and Religion Talk panel would have handled the same situation. Please send your questions to [email protected].