Abstract
Findings in prenatal diagnostics indicating a severe disorder of the fetus make it necessary for the woman to decide whether to abort or to give birth to the child. The decision about what to do will be elucidated by the Aristotelian model of decision-making. One aim is to raise the awareness of this decision by means of the finding in the empirical data of the EDIG study, namely that some women are saying that they made no decision. According to Aristotle, actions committed under compulsion or through ignorance are not decided by the agent. It will be argued that the women’s decisions meet none of these criteria and that the women are free to make a decision. Nevertheless their choice is limited as they only opt for an action that fits within the plan of their lives.
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Notes
- 1.
Questionnaires were elaborated by the members of the EDIG study and filled in by the women having taken part in the study in Germany, not published.
- 2.
This might seem strange to us as it is not the understanding of ignorance we use today. For us, the miss of the intention is due to the risks one should take into consideration in decision-making.
- 3.
In the questionnaires, we find one woman explaining this difficulty as her fetus has developed so far that it can already survive independently. She tells that a recommendation by professionals was to give this child, if it survives, up for adoption. In Germany, the “Oldenburger Baby”, a fetus that survived abortion in the 25th week of pregnancy in 1997, gained notoriety. After the missed abortion, it didn’t die but it was left alone for hours before it got any medical support. Nowadays the child lives in a foster family. For more information look at http://www.tim-lebt.de
- 4.
Aim of this chapter is to explain not-voluntary actions in the Aristotelian understanding. For this analysis, we only have as criterion an action “causing sorrow” or “not causing sorrow”. The exact differentiation of the time period elapsed after the event as we need it for any significant analysis if we look closer to the problem is blanked out.
References
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Sommer, R. (2011). Decision to Know and Decision to Act. In: Fischmann, T., Hildt, E. (eds) Ethical Dilemmas in Prenatal Diagnosis. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1396-3_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1396-3_12
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