Question

Scenario #3 Susan Roth was looking forward to being a mother. She had quit her secretarial job three months before her baby was due so she could spend the time getting everything ready. Her husband, David, was equally enthusiastic, and they spent many hours happily speculating about the way things would be when their baby came. It was their first child. ?I hope they don?t mix her up with some other baby,? Mrs. Roth said to her husband after delivery. She didn?t know yet tat there was little chance of confusion. 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. 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 the court proceedings, Mrs. Roth admitted to the killing but said she was satisfied 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, after deliberating for two hours, found Mrs. Roth and her husband guilty of the charge. **************************************** Mrs. Susan Roth gave birth to a severely deformed child. She took it home and gave tranquilizing drugs to the child and the child died on the first night home. Was her action morally correct? Should there be laws against this form of infanticide? How would someone respond to this question using the ethical principles of: NATURAL LAW THEORIST

Answer 1

The act which Mrs.Roth and her husband did is not acceptable in terms of morality.But when we think in the stand of those parents,what they did,is correct.If they allow her to live,she has to suffer throughout her life.If she lives,she could ask her parents,why they let her to live.Natural law theory says that human beings possess intrinsic values that govern our behaviour.Natural law maintains that these rules of right and wrong are inherent in people and are not created by society or court judges.That is, according to the natural law ,decision of Mrs.Roth and her husband is acceptable.