British Doctors have a serious problem that cannot be solved medically. They need help from the public. Their dilemma asks if they should give anesthetic to a patient before a life threatening procedure? I hear some readers responding: "What a no-brainer! Of course the answer is affirmative." But wait - you don't fully appreciate the problem: the patient under consideration is an unborn child. Scientific advances enable operations inside the womb.
The last 2 years of medical research have shown that the nervous system (by which we feel pain) is one of the first to be developed in the growing fetus. The doctors are vacillating about administering drugs before a surgical procedure inside the womb. Again I hear a chorus from the mothers yelling at them to remember the terms of their Hippocratic Oath and spend the extra money on anesthetic. "Where's the problem here? Your research shows that the infant fully feels the pain - doctor just do your job!"
"But wait," say English doctors, "the medical procedure we are talking about is the abortion of the fetus." Research reveals that during this operation the child experiences extreme pain. There's even a movie you can obtain that shows the inside of a womb and what happens as the abortion chemicals hit the unborn child. If you have the courage to watch, the film is called The Silent Scream. What you view is in the title.
"I still can't see the doctor's problem. Give the drugs needed!" Reader, I understand your frustration. In defense of the doctors who have gone public with this dilemma I offer their reasoning: "If we make it policy to administer the anesthetic we give the fetus human status. That causes us to break the terms of our oath by going on with the abortion procedure. Any admission that the fetus is a human life retreats from decades of claiming that the unborn child is a part of the mothers' body, just like a tumor or a malfunctioning organ. If we remove our medical support for that position the mother can no longer speak of her right to do with her body what she deems necessary to her happiness. She is talking about ending the life of a separate human being growing inside her." You can see why there's no medical answer to the doctor's question.
Because I'm a Bible reader you'd expect me to throw into the discussion a verse or two, so I will! The Bible claims that God forms us inside the womb. "You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb." Whatever is happening during gestation is more than a haphazard or even random mix of genes and chemicals. God, the Creator of the macro universe is also God the Creator of the micro individual. He's busy making a life within the mom. In Jeremiah 1 vs 5 we read that before we are born God has shaped a design for our lives. Wow, He's even working to a plan inside the pregnant mother!
How remarkable that the Bible appears to support current medical research. The Bible teaches that the fetus is a separate life from that of the mother. Thus a problem is posed for biblical thinkers. This quandary is even more pressing than that of the doctors. Are we saying that a mom can terminate the work God's doing in someone else's life?
If you replied affirmatively to the last question, we, in America have done it more than 36 million times since Roe Vs Wade!