Pregnancy and child birth are beautiful, natural, complex, and amazing processes. While the natural design of the human reproductive cycle is for mom and baby to remain healthy and happy for 40 weeks followed by delivery, uncontrollable or unforeseen variables can contribute to very rare but serious complications.

Sometimes complications arise that place the baby’s life at risk, or place the life of one baby from a set of twins/triplets/etc at risk. This could be caused by natural circumstances such as chromosomal or genetic abnormalities that prevent the baby from developing correctly, or they could be caused by mom drinking, smoking, doing drugs, or maintaining an unhealthy diet and lifestyle.

Additionally, these complications can place both mom and baby’s lives at risk, caused by circumstances such as injury or illness. For instance, if mom develops cancer, preeclampsia, or suffers trauma in an accident of some kind, or if the baby implants somewhere outside of the uterus (ectopic pregnancy).

More often than not, complications in pregnancy can be taken care of in a way that keep mother and baby safe and healthy. Medical technology in the West have given rise to interventions that target treatments for moms and babies during pregnancy – such as spina bifida surgery on babies in the womb.

In some extremely rare circumstances, complications arise that will certainly result in the death or either mom, baby, or both. For instance, in an ectopic pregnancy were the baby implants in the stomach lining or on the outside of the uterus, the baby can grow for a period of time and then doctors can attempt to surgically move the baby to the uterus or place the baby in an incubator to care for them outside the womb. But if the baby implants in the fallopian tube, there is no way for the baby to develop long enough to attempt safely moving him or her without the fallopian tube rupturing and the mother dying in the process. In this circumstance, some intervention must be taken to save one of their lives.

The only ethical way for families and doctors to navigate there tragic situations is to treat both mother and baby as patients with equal rights and equal interests. If doctors simply abort the baby, they’ve committed murder. But if they intervene in a way that attempts to save the life of the baby (even if they know it is highly unlikely) and the baby unfortunately passes away in the process, then they’ve treated both patients ethically.

Imagine if there were a car with to occupants that ran off a bridge into a lake. If you dive into the water, pull the driver out knowing you likely only have time to save one, and the passenger drowns, you did all you could. You didn’t kill the passenger by deciding to pull the driver, because you didn’t place them in the lake to begin with. However, if you dive into the water, pull the driver out, and shoot the passenger in the head on your way up, then you actively caused the death of the passenger. This is similar to the situation of treating both mother and baby as patients – if medical professionals act to save both lives, even if they know it’s likely only one will survive, they are still acting ethically as long as they don’t directly cause the death of one of the patients.