Medicine: Doctor's Dilemma

In Philadelphia's General (charity) Hospital last week lay one Mary Bocassini, 27. She was about 1) to have a baby and 2) to die of tuberculosis. Her Roman Catholic husband resolutely cried: "If my wife must die, it is the will of God, and my baby must die. . . . If one must die, both must die."

Mr. Bocassini, a sugar refinery laborer whose first wife died during a Cesarean operation, unwittingly disagreed with Roman Catholic canons. In accordance with canon law young Dr. John Corbit who had charge of Mary Bocassini's case, should, if necessary to save the child's life and soul, have delivered the child by Cesarean section. This would inevitably have caused the death of the mother and jeopardized young Dr. Corbit's promising career.

On the other hand, if Dr. Corbit waited for Mary Bocassini to die, the only way to deliver the baby would still be by Cesarean section. This introduced a problem in Common Law. Cutting her body post mortem might be construed as an autopsy. And Common Law forbids autopsy without the consent of the nearest surviving kin. Her husband objected.

Dr. Corbit's hospital superior asked advice of a Philadelphia lawyer, Assistant City Solicitor G. Coe Farrier, who has six children, one of whom he delivered himself because no doctor was handy. Lawyer Farrier believed that the husband's consent to autopsy was not essential in this emergency. A common pleas judge, Harry E. Kalodner, onetime reporter for the Philadelphia Record, concurred. Judge Kalodner called in the press to hear the following opinion:

"Thou shalt not kill is still the law of the land. If the doctors carried out the father's orders, it would be tantamount to condemning that unborn child to death. Such an operation might be considered in effect an autopsy, and I know there is a law which prohibits autopsies without the consent of relatives, in cases where there is no presumption or suspicion of crime. But that unborn child has legal rights, too.

"In law life begins at the moment a child stirs in the womb. At that moment the child becomes an individual with all the rights of a fullborn infant. This has been the ruling decision in many cases. Unborn children have established their rights to legacies, have had guardians appointed and have instituted suits at law. In this case, however, it is the first time that the right to life has ever been presented to a court. In all the other cases life has been taken for granted, and property has been the issue.

"Under the laws which govern us, only the State has the right to take away the life of an individual. In reverse, this means that the State has an inherent duty to protect the life of an individual it does not wish to condemn."