<p>This is totally offtopic, but this is haunting me.
Doctors today in Egypt removed the second head of a 10-month old child who was born with the head of an identical twin attached to her skull. The head looked just like the child, and had eyes that blinked and a mouth that smiled.</p>
<p>The head also had a neck, but was dependant on the host child for life.</p>
<p>In the articles I have read, there is no indication that the head lacked sentience. Thus, to me, the “head,” would fit the criteria for being a human being. </p>
<p>If many people in the world think that literally a clump of cells in utero with no discernible human features is a human being, how is it that this head is only regarded as a parasite, something subhuman?</p>
<p>While I am a pro choice person, this situation makes me very queasy. When is a human being a human being? </p>
<p>I saw the article and the picture too, NSM, and it gave me a queasy feeling. When I lived in Baltimore there was a set of Siamese twins conjoined at the head going to Coppin State. The technology then was such that to separate would certainly mean death to one of the twins. They did not consider it even an option. If the surgery on that head were delayed until adulthood, would they then have been so quick to decaptitate it? Especially if it had a working brain and could express its opinion on the matter?</p>
<p>I read the article, and I agree with you in theory, but I think that they made the right decision. The conjoined twins issue was more complex in my opinion though because in this situation, the head was not fully developed. Although it might have felt emotions, life would have been very hard for both the little girl and the head.</p>
<p>Altough this is slightly OT, the article made me think of the meat industry. One of the arguments for eating meat is that animals aren’t as smart as humans, but I have always felt that because they have emotions, they should be able to live unless they are already suffering to the point that life would bring no happiness anymore. What are your thoughts?</p>
<p>Another twist is the issue of helping chronically ill people die. If people are already suffering and request to be killed, what should be done? In this situation, the girl/children did not make a decision, but maybe they would have if the surgery were performed later.</p>
<p>But if the head were suffering enough, it is possible that it would not want to live. The problem is that we will never know what life would have been like for it.</p>
<p>There was no evidence, however, that the head was suffering. Why should it suffer? The picture indicates that it was forming naturally.</p>
<p>In addition, at least in the US, we don’t mercy kill human beings who are suffering. </p>
<p>We also have many people who are born with very severe disabilities. We don’t kill them even though their lives may be more difficult than are other people’s. I saw an article in the NY Times magazine about a woman who is severely congenitally deformed, but still is very happy to be alive.</p>
<p>The more that I think about this, the more complex it becomes to me. I completely understand you reasoning, and I feel the same way about certain aspects of the situation, but for some reason I still don’t know if the alternative would have been better. Maybe the best solution would have been to allow the head and the girl to remain together, but I’m not sure. With more information, my opinions might be very different.</p>
<p>Oh my… oh my… how incredibly sad and complex. Did the head and the girl share a brain? Or were they separate individuals? Could the girl grow with decent health with the other head still attached? Would she ever walk? Could the head only have been sentinent cooperatively? Was it an individual? Was it a he or she? Were there tests done? </p>
<p>If the head was sentinent, was there another way to preserve that life without the head having to remain on the girl? Could another support/circulatory/nutrition system concievably been used? Was there any other solution than simply killing the head?</p>
<p>I imagine that we aren’t being given the whole story–not in a deceptive sense, but rather over a privacy issue. If that were my little girl, I wouldn’t want the whole world judging my decision. That [those?] poor child[ren?].</p>
<p>I think we are not getting the whole story because the reporters didn’t ask the right questions. Seems to me that the press was so excited over the successful operation that removed the “parasitic” head that they didn’t bother to ask some important questions including is a head that can smile and blink that appears to have its own brain a separate individual even though it lacks the rest of a body? </p>
<p>Is it ethical to detach the head and thus sentence it to death?</p>
<p>Would the host baby and the attached head both have eventually suffered very early deaths if the head had not been surgically removed?</p>
<p>We keep babies alive who literally have no brain except a brain stem – a primitive structure that allows their automatic nervous system to function, but doesn’t allow them to see, hear, smell, move, etc. Since killing those kind of babies is considered murder, why isn’t it considered murder to kill a baby that consists of a head and brain?</p>
<p>If the holes in the story were due to the hospital’s refusing to release the info, the story would have said that is what occurred. Instead, it seems to me that the reporters mindlessly followed the spin the hospital and doctors put on the story.</p>
<p>I also am wondering if since it is a Muslim country there might be Muslim definitions of life that are involved. That is something else that should have been explained.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is where this operation took place. Some countries have very different ideas about ethics, and I suspect Egypt is one of them. Women have few ‘rights’ in this country. So what rights would a head without a body have?</p>
<p>Ooohhh- this subject is a hot potato. Very sensitive topic, with the possibility of empassioned responses on either side. But thus far, only Tanstaafl has looked much at the quality of life for the fully formed twin. If it was your daughter (or daughters), what you do? Would you subject the fully formed daughter to a life that, by most standards, would be difficult and unusual? As she aged, what if the “head” wanted to make different choices?? Which head gets to choose?? Is it necessary for the fully formed twin to be required to make such huge sacrifices throughout her life for the sake of the head? Whose rights are being violated? As the “head” has no spinal cord connecting it to the rest of the body, it does not appear to be capable of motor function, and this would likely include speech. We have not walked in the shoes of the parents of these girls (who I would assume agonized over difficult decisions made in the best interests of their offspring) just as many men, who have not walked in the shoes of a woman impregnated by a rape, argue so strongly for the rights of the unborn child at the expense of the rights of the mother. Yes, I am pro-chioce, and I do not wish to use this forum to discuss or debate this. I just feel that it is not my place to judge the personal decision made by this family. I feel it is a bigger tragedy that their private decision has hit the media, and is subject to public opinion.</p>
<p>Addendum-
To all-
I reworded the last sentence of my previous post, because I did not mean to imply that it was a tragedy to be discussed on this forum, but rather the “forum” of public opinion in general. What I was meaning to say is that it is hard enough when families are faced with difficult personal decisions. I hope that any ethical discussions are kept away from the family, who have suffered enough.</p>
<p>The issue that I would have liked to see the articles address is “What is a human being?”</p>
<p>I don’t think that there is a parent who would want their child to grow up with a second head. At the same time, though, if the second head is sentient does it not have as much right to live as do those babies who are born with only brainstems?</p>
<p>If the second head is not considered human then why is a child who has only automatic nervous functioning considered human?</p>
<p>I also would like to know if these kind of ethical concerns were even considered by the doctors or if there was the automatic assumption that a “parasitic” head was not a human being.</p>
<p>Apparently, Ted Williams and family feel that a head is indeed a human being. </p>
<p>That said, I don’t see this as any different than other conjoined twins. What’s the difference between this and giving the sole heart to one twin at the cost of death to the other?</p>
<p>I think that in the case of the twins joined at the chest, doctors said that both would die unless they were separated. The separation at least gave one a chance at life.</p>
<p>If that was the case in the twins discussed in this thread, the articles didn’t mention it. There has been at least one case of twins joined at the head in which doctors refused to operate because the operation would kill one of the twins.</p>
<p>Seems as if, instead of thinking of the second girl head as a parasite, she could be thought of as a Siamese twin who is paralyzed - unable to move her body. Thinking of it that way, it’s utterly inhumane to kill her. I also can’t imagine the effect on the other little girl - will she know about this? She apparently has the “dominant” head, but to what extent? </p>
<p>A few other questions that should have been asked:
Does this type of condition usually result in spontaneous abortion?</p>
<p>Could the second girl have been fitted with some sort of prosthetics? She could obviously never be separated and live, but could something be done to make them seem like normal Siamese twins, instead of a person and part person? (Note that the last two words really make me ill - hearkens back to the days when various persons were considered less than human.)</p>
<p>Was any sort of ultrasound done? Not to get too controversial, but, for the posters, what would you even think about doing if an ultrasound detected this problem?</p>
<p>Most anencephalic babies don’t live very long-- some a few hours, some a few days-- a rare few live a few years with intensive medical intervention. Parents have the right to push for maximal intervention on an ancephalic baby, or to put the child on DNR (do not recusitate). My question is still on the table-- if the child with 2 heads were your child, what would you do?</p>