Advances in modern medicine invite the assumption that medicine can control human
biology. There is a perilous logic that leads from expectations of medicine's control
over reproductive biology to the expectation of having a perfect baby. This article
proposes that obstetricians should take a preventive ethics approach to the care of
pregnant women with expectations for a perfect baby. We use Nathaniel Hawthorne's
classic short story, “The Birthmark,” to illustrate the perils of the logic of control
and perfection through science and then identify possible contemporary sources of
the expectation of the perfect baby. We propose that the informed consent process
should be used as a preventive ethics tool throughout the course of pregnancy to educate
pregnant women about the inherent errors of human reproduction, the highly variable
clinical outcomes of these errors, the limited capacity of medicine to detect these
errors, and the even more limited capacity to correct them.
Key words
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: March 15, 2010
Accepted:
January 20,
2010
Received in revised form:
November 15,
2009
Received:
October 15,
2009
Footnotes
Cite this article as: Chervenak FA, McCullough LB, Brent RL. The perils of the imperfect expectation of the perfect baby. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2010;203:101.e1-5.
Identification
Copyright
© 2010 Mosby, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
