Significant Other or a Child?
 

Two things. First I could not find any topics on this subject. Secondly, I did not know which forum was the most appropriate for this question. So, mods, please move it to a forum you see fit. Thank you.

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I've been having an ongoing argument with a certain person I know. My stance is that in a child delivery situation where either the mother or the child's life could be saved, I would choose the mother because that way I will have a chance of procreating once more. His stance is that it is illogical on the grounds that you cannot justify replacing an existing child with a future one.

Could I please have some opinions on this subject? Also, if you be so kind, please state whether you're a man or a woman when you post a responce.

EDIT: He did not specify whether he would chose the wife or the child. Simply pointed a flaw in logic where an existing child would be expendable.

I can't imagine a tougher decision to make. As a man, I'd have to say that I would be more likely to save my wife for the sake of the child we have now than one being born. Still, it's something I would always second-guess.

This is the type of question that one really can't answer untill their in the situation.

I think that I would choose the mother because in a family relationship, the man and woman need to be the center, that the children revolve around for it to healthy and balanced. When one parent chooses a child over the other parent it makes the dynamics whacky. I hope I'm making sence.

However some might say that the child should be chosen because they have potentialy more life in them, and it would be to much of a waste of potential life vs. the mother who has already had a chance to live.

Perhaps it is because I don't have children, but I don't see any difficulty to the decision.

I would choose my SO's life over the unborn child, with no hesitation.

I can't have children, but taking the hypothetical in the OP as a given--I'm pregnant, it's possible to save my life or the baby's, and I'm not able to decide on my own, I'd want Grace to choose the baby over me. She wouldn't (we've discussed this very issue as a part of our preparation for starting our own family); she'd choose to save my life, and I can hardly blame her as I'd make the same choice with her.

This very situation has occurred. There have been a handful of young pregnant women who suffer an injury and end up in a coma. One became a big issue case in the abortion debate when the husband wanted to abort the fetus to try to save his wife.

It isn't exactly parallel because in the case of comatose pregnant women, those who've attempted to take the baby to term have more often resulted in a miscarriage with stillborn child and a dead mother. Only when the mother is near term has the child survived, but this inevitably is fatal for the mother.

The other case is one in which a pregnant woman is diagnosed with cancer and requires chemotherapy to treat the cancer, but that chemo will kill the fetus. Treat the cancer or carry the child to term? I've read cases where both decisions were made.

I think the key here is that it's a decision that can and should only be made by the person in the situation and politics and outside opinions should be left out of it.

Gilda

Yeah, I'm with the callous non-child-havers on this one. I don't see any difficulty in this decision. The fetus isn't a person yet. There are still all sorts of natural things that could prevent it from ever becoming a whole human being. It's the potential of a human being, but it's not done cooking yet. If it has to lose that potential so that someone I love can live, then that's what's going to happen.

By the way, I'm keenly aware that I'm doing the cha-cha in a minefield here. The above is MY OPINION, and, like assholes, we all have them and they all stink.

Okay. Changing subject from the fetus to a full term baby birth of whom will threaten the mother's life. Who would you choose in that case?

I am not married and I dont have a child but I was talking to a three married friends with children and they all agreed they would save their wifes life over their childs. I know I would the same thing once I marry my lady. A wife is forever. No matter what, she and I till the day we die.

I would want him to save me, were it possible. Because well... as heartbreaking as it might be to lose a baby, it would be worse to lose a partner. We could have another baby. We could adopt. We would heal. But you can't heal death.

I'd chose my SO over an unborn baby.

Where exactly is the logical flaw? Your friend simply justifies exchanging an expendable baby for an expendable SO.

My mother tells a story, that a long time ago, in a galaxy far away... (well, OK, 83 years ago in a Catholic hospital in Hoboken New Jersey) her older brother was born with some major complications during the birth -where they didn't think my grandmother woudl survive the delivery... Those days, that wasn't an uncommon event.

From the story that was told, by my grandmother's sisters, the doctors worked so furiously to save my grandmother's life after the birth that the child was basically passed off to a nurse and almost forgotten about... at that point they had the choice to save my grandmother (who was a 22 year old female at the time) over the life of the baby... Because by someone's explanation the life of an adult was worth more than the life of a baby. (odd rules given a catholic hospital)

What would I want done? I'll never be in that situation so I won't have to make that choice...

Me over the baby, I would hope. My mother losr my father before I was born, and had to raise me by herself (before my stepdad came into the picture)... the trauma of that death will never leave her. They say losing a spouse is one of the highest stressors a person can ever experience; losing a child is obviously very hard, too, but I think the spouse one is even harder.

Say, if I had died, somehow, and my father had lived (obviously the events were unrelated), I think my mother might have been a lot more mentally stable than she is today. Then again, I wouldn't exist, but they might have had another child. So it goes.

I'm the one on the bottom. I thought about it for a long time a while back and decided that in this nightmare Sofie's Choice situation, I would choose the baby. I came to this decision because I couldn't make the decision myself, and my wife made me promise.

I cant really say... I would have to choose spur of the moment. I would probably be selfish and choose myself though... so many people depend on me for thigns that I would feel selfish if I let myself die... So I would feel selfish no matter what I did..... Oh well, gods willing I wont ever have to deal with it.

As painful as losing a child would be, it could not compare to losing my SO.

As a single guy, I would have to agree that it is a no brainer for me. It would mean that my genes wouldn't get passed down to the next generation at this time. But, once you have another child, you should be able to get over the first one.

And being a single parent wouldn't be fun.

i have no children, so I do not feel that my choice is even remotely valid. How could I consider making this decision when I don't have all of the pieces.
I think that a person's age has a lot to do with the choice they will make on this one. If you're a woman who is post-menopausal, it seems natural to choose the child over yourself since there would be little chance for offspring. But for someone between the age of 18 and 35, it would make more sense to choose the woman over the child. Unless of course they would be rendered infertile from whatever processes were necessary to save their life.

In any case, it is a difficult question and one that will keep me thinking for quite some time. I do not think that the poll will be very accurate, though, since you will most likely have responses from folks like me with no perspective to accurately vote.

No partner and no mother for the child...

No brainer here as well.

Talk to parents who've lost a child -- they don't just "get over it"... I've had friends who have had miscarriages both early on in the pregnancy and later in the pregnancy... and they don't ever stop thinking about what might have been with this child.

I think this is the most telling answer.

There are millions of already born children who need parents and those who don't have the direction of a parent could use the ones that have difficulty having one natrually.

I would chose my wife over my unborn child. Maybe since I already have two little ones that plays a hand in my decission, or perhaps that I dont know this child yet, and have no bond with him/her.

Now if that child was a year old or maybe even a few months, and I had to make the choice between him/her and me/spouse. I would chose the child over my wife and even myself.

When I think about it, my ex and I never had this conversation once, either time she was preggers. So glad nothing ever happen, I would hate to have to make that decission on my own without her input.

That's a hard question to answer. I, as a woman & mother, would do anything for my daughter, but if I had a partner, I would want for them to be on the same par. It really depends in what context I think.

Already being a mother of two, with a husband that would hate being a single parent, I *know* he would choose me over the unborn baby. What would I *want* him to do? Knowing what I know now and feeling the way I do about my children? It is very hard to choose. My heart says choose the child, my brain says choose me. I am leaning more towards choosing me, so that is how I voted.

edited to add: I can't shake the selfish feeling that my vote leaves in my heart.

A very good friend of my wife discovered that his wife had breast cancer four months into pregnancy. She opted to not take the full spectrum of treatment as it would/could harm the fetus.

She died four months after giving birth to a wonderful little boy.


I don't know that I would want to ever have to make that kind of decision, but if I had to, I would opt to save my wife.

Definitely one of the most difficult decisions I never wanna have to make.

Let's say the decision was all mine - she was unable to say what she wanted for some reason - how would I balance my personal view with what I think my SO would've wanted?

Let's say I choose her over the baby, and she would've wanted it the other way around. I'd have an SO that'd resent me for the rest of our lives, wouldn't I?

I voted for saving my SO. Selfish maybe, but if it was possible for us to have more kids later, I'd make that call.

I think, outside of a context that brings other complications into the equation, I'd vote for the woman and not the child to be saved. As long as you can have other children later, I think the more important relationship, in the case of an unborn child, is between the mother and the father.

Since I have never had children, my opinion can only be a rational one.

Oh, shit... that is awful. Is that what her husband wanted, too? I wonder what other women in that situation have done, since surely she is not the only one that's happened to.

4 months along... god, I still think I would end up choosing my own health over the baby's life, but that basically means I would have to have an abortion... which would destroy me emotionally for a long time.

And who knows if she would still have lived, even with the abortion and subsequent treatments for cancer? The cancer might have gotten her in the end, anyway. Then the SO wouldn't have me or a child... what a tragedy.

Goddamn, that's a rough situation.

I would choose my SO life over the life of my child... but I am prepared for that answer to change should I ever have kids.

Fuck that shit. Kill the little runt and keep the wife.

What an ugly situation! My wife and I have 2 beautiful daughters and a son that's only 9 days away. If it was my decision, and mine only, I'd have to say I'd choose my wife. As was mentioned earlier, the husband-wife relationship is paramount over that of the children. Although, if the choice was my wife's and she chose the baby over her, I'd stand by her (and would spoil that child silly for the rest of my life!).

Me: Single, no babies. Don't want any. Asides from that, if I was a man and faced that situation, I'd choose the wife, because I had made such an emotional investment in my wife already, I'd know her, she'd know me, we'd have lots of big and small things in common. How could I not choose that over someone I don't even know?

Furthermore, I would not wish that fate on any child, that of growing up knowing that your mother gave her life for you. Talk about pressure!

I've also been told that having a baby changes everything.

This wouldn't even register as a thought in my mind, it would go right to decision- you save the SO.

Why in the hell would you save a fetus when you can save an adult? That's totally nonsensical.

This really reminds me of one of my old threads that I started, about almost the same thing...

Thread: The Value of A Baby's Life...

I would save the wife, and hope that the misplaced guilt\anger the wife gives me doesn't destroy our relationship. :)

man here.
I would choose SO to live, unless I did not like her or I would inherit millions :-)
At the point of decision the baby is a dumb animal.
Of course I'v never been a father or really a part of a family for that matter.

Wow, I'm still the only dude to choose child over wife. If the roles were reversed and I was pregnant and my wife had to make the same decision, I'd hope she'd give our child the opportunity to live.

It disturbs me that anyone would choose the baby over your wife. The baby isn't developed and probably not even named. It's not aware of what's going on and no one in the world has a relationship with the baby outside of the womb. The wife is your lover, your significent other, your best friend. The wife has dozens of family members and friends and would seriously crush many people's lives if she passed away. The baby would be missed but it simply isn't as important as the wife by a long shot. Save the wife.

This is really a tough one, but my partner having a son from a previous relationship I would choose her life for his sake even so I have lost already 2 babies...

I voted before I read the OP so I chose to keep the baby. I was under the assumption that it was an already born child. Up until delivery you haven't met or formed a bond with the baby so you aren't as attached. Based on how the OP was worded, I'd chose my wife. The first months are so important and I don't think I'd be in a place where I'd be well enough to provide proper care.

However, now that she's almost 2, I'd keep her over my wife and I'd hope my wife would do the same. Adults have had their chance in life, you should ALWAYS keep the existing kid over the adult.

I hope it isn't a threadjack, but what is the cutoff between saving the child over the partner?

Am I the only one reading the OP to say that its a child delivery situation and interpreting that to mean....the child is being BORN, its not a fetus, it IS a life? (Im assuming the intent was to mean a full term baby, maybe Im wrong)

in any case...I would want Dave to choose me, selfish as it may seem to some people, I would not want him raising a life that existed because of my death

I'm a man and I chose SO . . . my reasoning being that I have other children, they need a mother. It would hurt me greatly to have to make the choice, but the greater good would require that I make sure my children that already depend on their mother are cared for (now I just have to find a SO).

I'd want xepherys to choose the baby's life over mine. My reasoning is that I've already had an awesome life thus far, and the baby should have the same opportunity. I hope to God we're never in that situation...

Prefacing this by stating the fact that I don't have kids, I would choose to save my SO. You spend years of your life trying to find your soulmate, and once you find that person, you've chosen each other. Yes, an attachment to your child is created even before the child is born, but your children, just like the rest of your blood relations, are assigned to you.

My Wife is by far....the most important aspect of this life to me. Nothing will ever replace her, Nothing could measure to the loss I would feel. My selfish nature would require she be saved....period.

WARNING - Long Post



Obviously a really tough question.

I am not positive of what my choice would be:
- I would really not know unless I was in the exact situation
- I think that there are so many things about the specific situation that would have an effect on the decision. For example:

What are the chances of survival for the wife? What are the chances of survival for the baby?


Do we already have any kids?


Has she had any pregnancies before?


What is the chance of her getting pregnant again?
Often in situations of difficult delivery (the OP was talking about a delivery) the woman may be left with the inability to have children in the future.


How would my wife react to loosing a child?
There are women who don't recover from a miscarriage. How would mine/your wife (or you) handle loosing a child during delivery.
There are a lot of peole who say that it is harder to loose a SO than a child. I disagree. Now I am not disagreeing with your choice in this thread just with the statement that it is harder to loose a SO.
Do the people who said this have children? There were probably some who did and some who did not.
There was someone who said that a SO is forever. I don't agree with this eaither.
While I personally see a SO as forever, divorce and infidelity (infidelity here = without the SO's approval) statistics don't seem to support this.

A child is forever. No matter what you do, once you have had a child, you have had a child. This cannot be erased.

Someone else said that there is no greatetr bond then between SOs. I disagree again. There is no greater bond than between a parent and child. This bond may even be one way (parent to child). In fact, it is possibly this onewayness (could not think of another word) that makes the connection so strong. A parent, in general, has such an uncoditional bond with their child with absolutely no expectation of anything in return. With an SO there is a two way bond and with a healthy relationship this twowayness (if I can make onewayness a word then why not twowayness) is needed.
The bond with an SO can so easily be broken. It begins to happen as soon as this twowayness ceases to exist or deteriorates. We see it all the time.
The bond with a child is never broken.
There is no greater pain in the world than seeing your own child suffer perhaps other than seeing your own child die. (thank god the previous statement does not come from experience)

SOs are meant to loose each other. It happens weveryday. It will continue to happen. At some point you will lose your SO or your SO will loose you. This is a normal life occurance. Of course loosing an SO during childbirth would be a tragically early separation from your SO but most people (and this is not empirical), after time (maybe a lot of time), eventually are able to move on.

Loosing a child is not normal. This should not happen, ever. This is not the natural course of nature. The pain that a parent must feel, which I hope to never know must be unbearable.

OK, so you will say "but the child is not born yet" or "but you don't know the child".
I may rationalize it like this as well but I am a man. I did not have the baby living in my body for the last 40 weeks. I did not have mornign sickenss becuase of the baby. I did not feel the baby move for the first time, from the inside, at around 16 to 20 weeks. I did not go to the doctor on a regular basis. I did not grow. I did not have to watch what I ingested (food, drink, or air) to ensure the baby was born healthy. I did not feel the baby's every movement later in the pregnancy. I did not know where in my body the baby's head, leg, arm, or but was (I don't know how my wife was able to tell the difference). I was not woken up in the middle of the night becuase the baby was squeezing my blatter. I did not have an arm or leg poke me so hard from the inside that roundness of my belly was replaced by the noticable shape of a potruding are or leg. I did not feed a baby from what I ate for 40 weeks. I did not incubate the life of another human being for 40 weeks. I did not have my water break. I did not go through hours of labour. I did not have to attempt to pass a baby through one of the smallest holes in my body.

I mention all these things to try to illustrate that the mother already has a bond/connection to that child.
When is the point that this unbreakable bond is forged.

I don't know. As a man, and a pretty logical type of person until the baby is born I would probably not have the same type of bond as a mother (and I could probably still never have that same bond).
But then again, what happens when I see the body of the dead baby. I know, it is hard to think about.
I think it would probably kill my wife to have to give birth to a baby that is already dead. You know that after a certain point you don't have an abortion anymore byt you have to deliver the baby.
Say for example that your wife (or you) wind out that you have cancer and it is pass the point in the pregnancy where they can abort the fetus and you choose to have chemo or a procedure that kills (for lack of being able to think of another word) the fetus - your wife (or you) will have to deliver the baby.


So I said all this and I still don't know what I would do in the situation. We can't know (even if you have talked about it) until faced with the decision. Hoepfully none of us will be faced with the decision.
(maybe I took the easy way out by not answering but I could definately see situations where I would make either decsion)
I will have to have the discussion with my wife.


Extra:
To illustrate the parent child bond somebody mentioned Sophie's choice (the situation was not the same though) with regards to choosing your life over your childs.
If someone came up to you with a gun and said "I will kill you or your child, you choose." I think the decision would be easy. Have him kill me instead of my child.

Sophie's choice was actually to choose which of her childre should live when forced into the decision by an SS officer (see the movie if you have not).
But I think the poster was just trying to point out that the decision we are talking about is "sophie's choice" type of decision.


Now I must do some work today.

Gosh bless it all! I am still a Newb so I cant get to the fricken fracken Thread.:mad:
(rant ended life will now go on)

What a difficult decision! I would hope that my SO would chose my life over the birth of a child. I am a woman. It made me think about people who have been in this situation. One person I know lost his sister to childbirth, but then again there was no chance they could save because of the blood loss. But what if there would have been a chance? I wonder what the husband would have picked?

For a child not yet born I would save my wife. She would most likely want to save the baby.

As a man with no kids, I am almost certain the selfish part of me will choose my wife over my unborn child. It would be interesting to see whether actual fathers are more altruistic.

First of all I hope I'm never in the situation where I have to make that call, but honestly I can't vote. I dont know what I'd do.
It really would depend to, is it a fetus that's like a month or two old? I'd probably go with save the SO, yeah it's a shit choice but it happens.
Is it a baby that's ready to pop and I have to choose between the two? Honestly I dont know what I would choose.

What a fucking dilemma. Pardon my language, but that's the only way I can put it.

Does anybody have any philosphy that helps here? I think I'd have to choose the mother, on the basis that (assumed) I have a trust reletionship with her, and that unlike the baby - I know 100% that she is an independant viable life. The viability and conscious state of the baby is an unknown.

Jumping forward to a position where the baby is three years old - at that later point I don't honestly think I could decide, unless the mother had a strong desire for the child to live in preference.

But if I was in a situation where I had to make a choice - it'd probably haunt me forever.

I have 2 kids and would say with no question that I'd save my wife. I'm sure it would still be a difficult decision in the moment, but I can't imagine sacrificing my wife of 10 years (and mother to two kids) for an unborn child. I just can't.

Glad to see my hubby and I are on the same page. *whew* Even if it's a full-term baby, I would still make the same choice. One, I wouldn't want him to have to raise a kid by himself, and two, I'm a selfish bitch. I'd rather go through the grief together and start over again.

Let's dance, baby! Watch out for that mine over there....

I'm a female with no children (and not planning on having children) so take my opinion for just that....but I would hope my SO would choose the baby's life over my own. I know it would be a burden for him to raise the child alone, but I also am lucky to have a wonderful family who I know would help in any and every way possible. The baby deserves to have a good life, as I have had, and who knows what he/she might do with their life to help mankind.

baby over me
 

I would hope that if my future husband ever had to chose between me and my kid, it would be the kid. Children should always be your first priority.

it would probably be the toughest decision one would ever have to make if thrown into a situation like that. (and i say thrown because people are never prepared for a situation like that)

as i'm sitting here, i'm trying to fathom what i would do if that were me...or if i were in that situation and i've come to the conclusion that there is no right or wrong way, because it is a lose lose situation. you either lose a SO or you lose a child...who will ever be up to making a decision like that?

also, in a situation like that, more children will not be on your mind at that time...all that you will be thinking boaut is the child that you are losing at that point in time. who knows what guilt you'll carry around with you for the rest of you life with either decision.

all you can do is hope and pray that you will never be faced with it and if you are, hope you have the strength and wisdom to lead you on the correct path, to make the proper choice and to make sure that you can live with whatever choice you make.

I would definitely choose my wife if it were just up to me, but if she wanted to save the kid instead, I would respect her wishes. Of course, that's a lot easier said than done. Who knows what would happen if this situation actually did occur? I'm sure there would be a lot of factors that I'm not taking into account right now.

Logically, the baby is an unformed person. It is unknown, unattached to either parent, and thus is less valuable than the mother. In the situation though, I can't say that logic would prevail.

I voted to keep the baby over my SO. I might have voted differently if it was my first child, but I've already a daughter and there is nothing for me that is as great a feeling as being a parent.



The fact that my old lady's given me most of my gray hairs also might have something to do with it... ;)

i would rather save my hypothetical SO's life rather than the baby's.

(Woman. Mother.)

Healing a baby’s death is no simple brush-off. Many people have suffered and never recovered from the absence and “what if” of not being able to bring a pregnancy to fruition. Losing a child can’t always be healed and “fixed’ by the introduction of a replacement.

If I were faced with this decision, however, I would chose the connected mid-life adult, so as not tamper with the multiple lives that have already become dependent upon, associated w and connected to them. I would want to base my decision on what would cause the least amount of immediate pain, not whether I can pass genes into an imagined future.

I would have let my wife make the decision. If she was unable, I would have done everything possible to give the best chance to save both of them, even if that decreased the chances of saving one or the other...IE, I'd pick something that was 75%/75% for both rather than 100%/0% for either.

If that choice was unavailable, and it was 'choose one, we can't save both' I would have saved my wife.

I'm glad to see that this thread has been revived, since my thoughts on the matter have changed. In any case, I see the proposed scenario as a major tragedy which would have a large effect on the family involved.

One of my cousins has an ongoing and a seemingly incurable case of MRSA. She recently became pregnant - with twins. We all knew that it would be a high-risk pregnancy. Well, sure enough the MRSA spread to the fetuses. One of them was infected badly and died in the womb. She decided to have a surgery to remove the one so there would be less of a risk of the MRSA spreading to the other. During the surgery, things went wrong. She lost a lot of blood and her life was on the line. By the end, her life was saved but both of her potential children were lost. With them gone, she was able to undergo a substantial antibiotic regime, with the hope of saving her life as well. This is a woman who struggled with infertility issues for most of her adult life, is in her late 30's, and does not necessarily plan on having any children again in the future. Her life is valuable.

In my cousin's case, her life was at risk, but so were the lives of her two unborn children. In our family, there was less emotional attachment to the "potentials"than to the mother. There would have been a lot of broken hearts if it had gone another way, and the lives of her children would have been tumultuous and uncertain without the presence of their loving mother.

Another real-life example: A close friend of mine developed pneumonia at about 26 weeks. They had limited options for treating it, but 26 weeks is extremely early for the baby to survive, so they did what they could and waited as long as possible to do an emergency c-section (I thinks he got to 30 weeks).

They had waited so long that she had to be put into an induced coma on a ventilator for two weeks post-delivery, but it was long enough for the baby to survive with no ill effects, and she did fully recover, but there was a chance she might not have. That is why I said, I'd take the middle ground--obviously at 26 weeks they could have done a c-section and given her 'the good meds' and she would have been fine, but a 26 week preemie is generally going to have a pretty rough start on life, so they waited, compromising the mom's health.

Things are rarely as black and white as the poll makes them seem.

I don't know. I don't think there is ever likely to be a real case where you can be confident that you are choosing A over B.

It's easy to say "pick the wife over the child", but from an evolutionary point of view, my genes are better served picking the child (assuming it is mine) over my wife (who may not be able or desirous of having a second try at a child after this trauma).

Also there's the issue that the incidence of relationship failure after this sort of situation is vastly greater than in "ordinary" relationships; so you have the disaster of a dead baby, followed almost inevitably by the divorce.

Saving the baby means I don't have to deal with the recrimination and hurt of having to tell my wife that I killed her baby, I get the support of her family, my family, her insurance, the state...

I never ever want to be in this situation, and hope nobody I know is.

The woman of course has the right to choose. Mayhap it would be sensible for expectant mothers to make those choices when they are in good health - so that their SO does not have to be in such a terrible position. I have friends who have 'no heroic measures' in their medical notes - perhaps similar should be discussed with parents to be. Belt and braces. Had I been in that situation, like many others I would have had to do what was in the best interests of my children. There would have been no safe family member for them to go to - and always the fear they would be placed with an 'unsafe' adult.