Selective Murder

The Washington Post Magazine publishes an extensive report on the practice of "selective reductions," taking us into the practice of Dr. Mark Evans in Manhattan. This article is not for the faint-hearted.

As Mundy reports, Dr. Evans has attempted to define his own set of "guiding principles" in terms of the ethics of his practice. At first, he refused to take the gender of the babies into consideration. Now, he does so -- allowing couples to choose to carry one boy fetus and one girl fetus, while killing the others. He also refused at first to "reduce" pregnancies from twins to single babies, because he admits that there is no danger to fetal health posed by a twin. He changed his policy on that too. When some couples want just a single child, he will now "reduce" to one.

Clearly, Dr. Evans' "guiding principles" are really "sliding principles." He is making up his ethical system as he goes along.

[During the sonogram prior to selecting which child to murder:] ...there was nothing anomalous about any of the fetuses. Greenbaum turned the screen toward the patient. "That's the little heartbeat," she said, pointing to the area where a tiny organ was clearly pulsing. "And there are the little hands. There's the head. The body."

"Oh, my God, I can really see it!" the patient cried. "Oh, my God! I can see the fingers!"

"Okay!" she said, abruptly, gesturing for the screen to be turned away. She began sobbing. There were no tissues in the room, so her husband gave her a paper towel, which she crumpled to her face. The patient spent the rest of the procedure with her hospital gown over her face, so she would not see any more of what was happening.

She can hide her face under a hospital gown, but she knows exactly what is happening. One of her babies is to be killed with an injection of poison.