The Sanctity of Life: Separating The Twins, Mary and Jody

The sanctity of life argument states that all human life is precious. In the case of the conjoined twins Mary and Jody, an operation was proposed to separate the twins but would result in saving one while hastening the death of the other. The parents of the twins were devout Catholic and had decided that they would not speed up the process of one of their daughters dying. Instead they chose to forgo the operation even though they knew that both girls would die instead of just one. The doctors assigned to this case appealed to the courts to let them go against the parents’ wishes and perform the operation to save the life of Jody. The petition was granted to the doctors and the operation was performed. Mary died.

The sanctity of life argument also prohibits the killing of an innocent, in this case the innocent is Mary. The doctors argued that in this case they were not really killing Mary, the operation was not intended to kill her, her body was just not strong enough to sustain herself. But, the doctors knowing that Mary could not survive the operation knowingly hastened her death by performing the operation. The question remains whether or not the doctors murdered Mary by choosing to go against her parents’ wishes and performing the operation and ultimately hastening her death when she and her conjoined sister could have died a natural death.

If one were to contest the sanctity of life argument, then they would state that there are three conditions to be made. The first condition that must be met to provide reason in disputing the sanctity of life argument is that the innocent human in question must not have any chance at a future, meaning the quality of their life has been compromised. All of the activities that we perform daily without thought, these individuals might not be able to perform. The type of life tat society has deemed that the normal individual should dictate, would not be possible for these said people, the type of life that includes going to school, contributing to society through work, getting married, procuring the existence of society through reproduction and so on. The second condition that must be met is that the innocent human has no wish to go on living (maybe it is that they have no wishes at all). This would occur is the said person is in a comatose state or other medical state in which they can no longer make decisions for themselves. The third and final condition to be met is that the killing of the individual will save the lives of others who can go on to lead full lives. The third condition is the condition that relates to Jody and Mary’s case because for Jody to go on and lead a full life, Mary would have to be killed. Because she would never be able to go on and lead her own full life, her death was justified.

Socrates begins by questioning “Is the conduct right because the gods command it, or do the gods command it because it’s right?” The second part of his question is “does this conception of morality make God’s commands arbitrary?” The Divine Command theory states that God decrees what is right and what is wrong. Actions that God commands us to do are morally required; actions that God forbids us to do are morally wrong. But are these commands subjective? How are we to truly know what actions God would deem morally wrong and morally right? Socrates’ second concept attempts to explain this by comparing God to an imposing parent. Instead of offering a reason as to why something may or may not be morally right or wrong, he simply says “because I said so.”

If God’s commands are arbitrary, meaning that that they are subjective, and that they are merely beyond our understanding, then everything we have previously thought to be right and wrong could be completely false. We must blindly trust that what has been decreed and written by the supposed followers of God is true. Whether or not God’s commands are arbitrary, there is a certain sense of morality, a code, which has been developed over time and what is morally right and morally wrong has been accepted. What Socrates means by his second concept is simply that what God commanded to be right, he just as well could have commanded to be wrong, and that is why his commands can seem arbitrary.

The Theory of Natural Law has a particular view of the world on which the theory rests. It was developed by the Greeks and it is the belief that everything in nature has a purpose. Aristotle further developed this theory by proposing a certain set of questions such as: What is it? What is it made of? How did it come be? And what is it for? Aristotle uses the example that we have teeth. Why do we have teeth? We have teeth for the purpose of chewing our food. Biological examples are persuasive because it does seem that every part of our body has a specific function or purpose. Let us not forget that our bodies are not the only thing with a purpose, according to Aristotle, EVERYTHING in nature has a purpose. The second part of the theory of nature includes the idea of not just how things are, but how they ought to be. This explains the evil in the world, all bad things that occur are causing a disruption in a previously harmonious world. These disruptions are considered unnatural and unnatural is considered morally wrong while natural ways are considered morally right. The third and final concept of natural law involved moral knowledge such as how are we to tell right from wrong? If we were to go by the Divine Command theory, we would consult God’s commandments, but natural law is simply rules by reason and who presents the best argument.