Disabled girl at centre of surrogacy case dies
by Michael Cook | 8 Aug 2020 |
Serafina Harrell
A girl with severe disabilities who made international headlines when her surrogate mother refused to abort her has died. Seraphina Harrell, 8, died in Boston last month after surgery.
In 2013 an ultrasound revealed that the child carried by a surrogate mother, Crystal Kelley, had a number of severe birth defects. The commissioning parents offered Kelley US$10,000 to have an abortion. She refused. The parents’ lawyer followed up with a threatening letter which said: "You are obligated to terminate this pregnancy immediately. "You have squandered precious time."
Ms Kelley fled from Connecticut to Michigan so that she would be deemed the legal mother when the child was born. She later adopted Seraphina out to the Harrell family, in Massachusetts, who already had seven children.
Seraphina was born with heterotaxy syndrome. Many of her internal organs, such as her stomach and liver, were in abnormal places. She had several heart defects and two spleens, neither of which worked properly.
She also had a brain malformation called holoprosencephaly, in which the brain fails to completely divide into distinct hemispheres. During her short life, she had three heart surgeries and many minor surgical procedures.
However, Seraphina was not an unhappy child.
"What drove the conflict when Crystal was pregnant with her, was whether or not she'd have a meaningful life,” her adoptive mother, Rene Harrell, told CNN. “And I think without hesitation, the answer to that question is yes, she did. Seraphina had a very, very meaningful and happy life."
Seraphina could only speak a few words, but she learned American Sign Language. Her favourite sign was "I love you." She couldn't walk but mastered her wheelchair.
“Sadness is not the defining sum of Seraphina’s story,” her family wrote in her obituary. “Love is.”
"What I heard over and over from so many of her doctors was they could never imagine that someone with Seraphina's level of need could do as well as she did or be as joyful as she was," her mother said.
Michael Cook is editor of BioEdge
In 1978 Tom Beauchamp and James Childress published their milestone textbook, Principles of Biomedical Ethics. Over at the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, they're throwing a birthday party and reviewing those legendary principles of respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-malificence, and justice which have been the backbone of bioethics education ever since.
But it is a 40th birthday party, so perhaps it's also time for a mid-life crisis. And right on schedule arrives 'black bioethics'. Keisha Ray argues that younger and more diverse bioethicists are sick and tired of seeing their concerns about injustice and racial inequality sideliined by establishment figures. Will this lead to the crumbling of an already fractured discipline?
Michael Cook
Editor, BioEdge
But it is a 40th birthday party, so perhaps it's also time for a mid-life crisis. And right on schedule arrives 'black bioethics'. Keisha Ray argues that younger and more diverse bioethicists are sick and tired of seeing their concerns about injustice and racial inequality sideliined by establishment figures. Will this lead to the crumbling of an already fractured discipline?
Michael Cook
Editor, BioEdge
NEWS THIS WEEK
by Michael Cook | Aug 08, 2020
The field is splintering into many different factionsby Michael Cook | Aug 08, 2020
Transgender adults are six times more likely to be diagnosed as autisticby Michael Cook | Aug 08, 2020
Defying predictions, she had a happy lifeby Michael Cook | Aug 08, 2020
What about the equal dignity of the disabled?by Michael Cook | Aug 08, 2020
Combatting a crisis in medical information on the internetby Michael Cook | Aug 08, 2020
Ten out of 15 oppose abortionby Xavier Symons | Aug 08, 2020
Shocking footage has emerged of a father being forcibly removed from a UK ICU ward by police.IN DEPTH THIS WEEK
by Patrick Foong | Aug 08, 2020
American regulators get toughby Michael Cook | Aug 08, 2020
For a real epidemic, read ‘The Betrothed’BioEdge
L1, Unit 7, 11 Lord Street · Botany, NSW 2019 · Australia
Phone: +61 2 8005 8605
Mobile: 0422-691-615
.png)
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario