Phil Ethics Aquinas Four Laws and Principle of Double Effect Essay – Description
apply the principle of double-effect to both cases below. Explain the ways in which they do or do not fulfill the four criteria, and therefore either are or are not justified according to Natural Law.
1. A young woman who is four months pregnant has recently discovered that she has tuberculosis. The doctor informs her that she must take a drug that will cure her disease, but that the drug will also have the effect of aborting the fetus. There is no other available drug that will cure her disease, and if she does not take the drug immediately she will die. According to natural law, may the young woman take the drug?
2. In the process of attempting to deliver a fetus, a physician discovers that the fetus is hydrocephalic. The fetus’s large cranium makes a normal vaginal delivery impossible; both the woman and fetus would die in the attempt. Neither the mother nor the fetus would survive a cesarean section, so the only way to save the mother’s life is to crush the skull of the fetus (craniotomy), thus rendering a vaginal delivery of the stillborn fetus possible. Would such a procedure be justified by natural law?
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