Susan Roth: Doing The Right Thing?

637 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Female infanticide case study

According to the Decision Scenario 1: Doing the Right Thing? Susan Roth was looking forward to becoming a mother. This was Susan and her husband David first child. The Roth infant was seriously deformed. Her arms and legs had failed to develop, her skull was misshapen, and her face deformed. Her large intestine emptied through her vagina, and she had no muscular control over her bladder. As a result, when she was told, Mrs. Roth said, “We cannot let it live, for her sake and ours.” On the day she left the hospital with the child, Mrs. Roth mixed a lethal dose of a tranquilizing drug with the baby’s formula and fed it to her. The child died that evening. Mrs. Roth and her husband were charged with infanticide. During Court Mrs. Roth admitted to the killing but said she had done the right thing. “I know I could not let my baby live like that,” she said. “If only she had been mentally abnormal, she would not have known her fate. But she had a normal brain. She would have known. Placing her in an institution might have helped me, but it wouldn’t have helped her.” The jury, found Mrs. Roth and her husband guilty of the charge. …show more content…

and Mrs. Roth’s termination violates the moral rules do not kill, do not cause pain, and obey the law. Killing a child by giving them a drug is absolutely wrong. Even though the child is deformed this caused some pain from the time the Roth’s fed the child until she died. God gave us 10 commandments to show us how to live a better life and please God forever. One of those commandments are you shall not murder. Harms prevented in this situation would be long-term pain for the sake of the child. On the other hand, killing this baby would prevent the child from pain and suffering. However, it is strongly justified that this act is not permissible due to them being found guilty. The relationship between the mother and her child was not special. Mrs. Roth believed that the evil punishment prevented the child from pain and

Show More
Related

  • Case Study Of Kenneth Edelin's Case

    1008 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kenneth Edelin was a 35 year old third year medical resident at the Boston City Hospital. This hospital was known for many poor coming into it. This was also a place for research. By this time research was still being conducted on fetuses and embryos. When a patient came to the hospital for an abortion she also signed a waiver for them to test on her. They called her “Alice Roe” and she was only 17 years old but had the consent of her mother to proceed with the abortion.This patient was estimated by the supervisor over the residents, Hugh Holtrop, to be about twenty-two weeks pregnant but the other residents Enrique Giminez and Steve Teich disagreed. They estimated that she was about twenty-four weeks pregnant. Edlein was put in charge of doing the

    Read More

  • The Four Topics Method of Analysis: A Pregnant Accident Victim

    1099 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...s driven by non-maleficence, or the intent to “do no harm”. They know that withholding treatment for religious beliefs will potentially be fatal to both. While Maria is acting out of loyalty to her religious beliefs, the medical staff is acting out of loyalty to the patient’s well being and that of her unborn child. It would be unfair if no party were acting on behalf of that child. In conclusion, providers in this case must pursue every option in delivering life saving treatment for this child. This may involve legal action. If it were just Maria providers may attempt to influence her decision, but ultimately it would be up to her to refuse suggested treatment. Since her decision affects the life of the baby providers are called upon to save that child .

    Read More

  • The Strange Case of Marlise Munoz and John Peter Smith Hospital

    1005 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kemp, Joe. “Fetus of pregnant, brain-dead Texas woman ‘distinctly abnormal’: lawyers.” NYDailyNews. New York Daily News. 23 Jan. 2014. Web. 08 Feb. 2014.

    Read More

  • T. Coraghessan Boyle's The Love of My Life Passage Analysis

    986 Words  | 2 Pages

    That thing in the Dumpster--and he refused to call it human, let alone a baby--was nobody's business but his and China's. That's what he'd told his attorney, Mrs. Teagues, and his mother and her boyfriend,and he'd told them over and over again: I didn't do anything wrong. Even if it was alive, and it was, he knew in his heart that it was, even before the state prosecutor represented evidence of blunt-force trauma and death by asphyxiation and exposure, it didn't matter, or shouldn't have mattered. There was no baby. There was nothing but a mistake, a mistake clothed in blood and mucus. When he really thought about it, thought it through on its merits and dissected all his mother's pathetic arguments about where he'd be today if she'd felt as he did when she was pregnant herself, he hardened like a rock, like sand turning to stone under all the pressure the planet can bring to bear. Another unwanted child in an overpopulated world? They should have given him a medal. (623)

    Read More

  • A Defense Of Abortion By Judith Jarvis Thomson

    1303 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...r (directly killing the baby in the womb or slitting the throat of the violinist). I believe the difference is very clear and therefore refutes Thompson's case of the unconscious violinist. This means that premise 4 still stands true.

    Read More

  • Killings: A Father's Love for his Child

    289 Words  | 1 Pages

    The actions that a parent takes in order to protect or support their child cannot be judged in a courtroom, because parents cannot describe the way that they feel knowing that their offspring is gone forever. In a court of law, Matthew Fowler should be tried for justifiable homicide, and he should possibly plead temporary insanity. A parent cannot control their violent actions, because the feelings that one feels towards a child is much stronger than any other emotion could ever be. Frank Fowler's life was taken in a horrific and traumatic matter, and for this, a parent cannot undergo the normal mourning process. A parent like Matthew Fowler could not go through each day knowing that their child's murderer is walking the streets freely. A mother, like Ruth Strout, would go crazy seeing that heartless person do everyday things that her son/daughter can no longer do. This would drive a person to temporary insanity, causing them to lash out and kill the murderer. Matthew Fowler had reason to kill Richard Strout, even if it would result in hurting Matthew in the end.

    Read More

  • Professional Athletes and Domestic Violence

    1360 Words  | 3 Pages

    When a person takes another person's life, then that person should have his own life taken as well. Beautiful dark-haired Gina and her sweet brown-eyed babies, did not ask for, nor want, their precious live...

    Read More

  • The Lacci Peterson: The Case Of The Laci Peterson Case

    1215 Words  | 3 Pages

    Someone should be prosecuted for murdering a unborn child. Someone should be prosecuted for murdering a unborn child,It goes against the laws of nature.There are also laws protecting the life of an unborn child, the unnatural removal of the child can do physical

    Read More

  • The Andrew Bedner Case

    165 Words  | 1 Pages

     How it relates to healthcare: The child’s injuries proved severe, and Bedner faced a long prison sentence if convicted,but he didn’t face murder charges.As his critically ill daughter,C.B. remained on life support  the hospital sought to exclude Bender from decisions regarding from life support. The girl eventually did die, but the case generated considerable public debate and stimulated a controversy among bioethics scholars .

    Read More

  • The Supreme Court Case Of Abortion

    1516 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...actually take the fetus out of the mother’s womb with surgical scissors and a suction device is placed through the opening of the brain so the head can collapse. The Supreme Court case in 2003 of Stenberg v Carhart in Nebraska did not allow partial-birth abortions and ruled that it was unconstitutional. Since then laws such as The Partial Birth Control Abortion Ban Act became in effect on 2003 by George W. Bush and it prohibited this horrendous act except in rare cases where it would be absolutely necessary to save the mother’s life. After that in 2007 in the Supreme Court case of Gonzales v Carhart, upheld the federal ban on partial-birth abortion and reversed the Stenberg v Carhart ruling. Gonzales created the precedent that anyone who “delivers and kills a living fetus could be subject to legal consequences”, unless it was done to save the life of the mother ().

    Read More

  • A Critique of Judith Thomson’s A Defense of Abortion

    1883 Words  | 4 Pages

    Thomson recognizes that this thought experiment has a very limited application – specifically to those instances where a pregnancy is the result of coercion or violence. In the sec...

    Read More

  • The Trolley Problem, by Judith Jarvis Thomson

    756 Words  | 2 Pages

    The mother-son case illustrates that there are more factors in play than just the two that Thomson presents in her thesis. Thomson’s conditions by themselves cannot explain every situation. The relationship between the people involved can also affect whether a decision is morally permissible or not. If that relationship entails that one person is emotionally bound and ethically responsible for the security and well-being of the other, the first cannot knowingly contribute to the death of the second. Thomson’s thesis must be modified to include this condition as well.

    Read More

  • The Ethics of Abortion

    2300 Words  | 5 Pages

    One moral argument is that the fetus is an innocent person and it is wrong to kill an innocent person therefore it is wrong to kill a fetus (Roth, 2005). The opposite argument can also be made. The fetus ...

    Read More

  • The Ethics Of Abortion By Judith Jarvis Thomson

    1549 Words  | 4 Pages

    Adams’s unwanted pregnancy, I will use their arguments to see if her decision to have an abortion is morally justified. Through Thomson’s use of the violinist analogy and burglar and people-seeds analogy, I will show that Mrs. Adams’s abortion is morally justified because Mrs. Adams got pregnant despite the use of contraception; showing that the fetus’s right to life and its potential is not equal to the use of her body since she did not consent to the fetus’s use of her body.

    Read More

  • The Positive Effect: The Principles Of Double Effect

    1029 Words  | 3 Pages

    However, in this case, if the woman does not take the medication, she will die. If the woman dies, then her baby will also die. According to natural law, taking this drug is permissible. The act, aside from the consequences would save the young woman’s life. Considering the next criteria to the rule, the negative effect of aborting the fetus cannot be avoided. If the woman wants to survive and cure her disease, the only way that she can accomplish this is to abort the fetus. Lastly, the negative effect is lesser than the positive effect. Although aborting the fetus sounds harsh, the baby will not survive in either case. If the young woman who is pregnant does not take the medication to cure her disease, she will die, resulting in the death of the baby as well. On the other hand, if she does take the medication, she will survive, but the fetus will be aborted. As difficult as this may be to consider, this is the better option. In this case, one life would be saved, rather than losing

    Read More

More about Susan Roth: Doing The Right Thing?

Open Document