What would you do - Medico - ethical question

A few years ago , I was being interviewed at the christian university when I was posed with a problem. "If you were a doctor who has to tell a pregnant woman who is near term that according to the medical tests we did, letting her pregnancy proceed to term would imperil her life , what would I do"
My peers came up with a lot of paths which broadly fell into the following classes - Tell her and leave the choice up to her, tell them nothing and pray for them , take proactive actions to end the pregnancy and justify it as medically necessary. I distinctly remember an interesting question someone asked the moderator - "Is it a Boy or a Girl? " - a reflection of the Asian psyche which places some weight behind survival of the male progeny.

I argued for telling the family but protecting the life of the mother even at the cost of the child's as the mother can possibly be blessed with more children and the loss of her life may deprive more than one person of important people of their lives because she is also a wife,daughter,sister and friend.

I throw the question open to anyone who might care to answer - leave me a comment

P.S: I was reminded of this incident when I drove past a group of people picketing a family planning center here

So who is a christian

Some people might opine that everything I see now is curious to me but this kind of curious to me - so obviously I have to write about it.

Some weeks we have an off site (as far as I am concerned) meeting with some of our extended team. Through a strange conversation chain that included 'Why some people are vegetarian in India' and 'Do people always marry whom their parents chose in India? ' (Both directed at a colleague and not I ) , we arrived at the topic of castes in India. A curious teammate knew if I had a caste. Unthinkingly, I said 'I am christian'. With a mischievous smile he asked 'Do you mean that you are not assigned a caste so you are a christian or that you chose the Lord as your master and savior so you call yourself a christian.


Not used to religion at the work place , I faltered for a bit while the next statement came from him- " I think that being a christian is accepting that someone died for you taking all that you are supposed to have suffered' Right at that moment that being a testament to Christ is not about waving your hands singing I believe in church but being able to answer the question 'Why did you say you are a christian' without a second of doubt. There are a few other things that were asked but I dont want to dilute this moment with those - more later