The Jodie and Mary twins tragedy The Judges got it wrong

Colin Hart, Director of The Christian Institute, writing in the next Edition of the Institute’s Advocate magazine calls attention to the contradictory opinions of the Appeal Court judges in the recent court decision allowing the operation to separate the twins.

Colin Hart, said today,

“The very great danger is that the finely balanced arguments in a highly unusual case will be seized upon by ‘moral innovators’ to legitimise clearly wrong and indefensible actions in other cases.

We do not believe it is right for Jodie to be separated from Mary. “Saving one is better than none” superficially makes sense, but in reality it can never be right for doctors to kill one person to benefit another. Judges and Doctors must not play God. Just because an operation can be performed doesn’t make it right.

The twins share the same heart, lungs and liver, but they are two persons in the sight of God. We know that Mary can suckle, open an eye and respond to touch. She clearly has a functioning brain, but we do not know to what extent.

This is a hard case and there are many difficult issues. But it is precisely these sort of hard cases which can set profoundly important precedents.

We were pleased that the Appeal Court rejected the use of the Bland case, but in their reasoning the Appeal Court Judges contradicted each other. For example, one said that double effect was the basis of the operation being lawful. This was completely dismissed by the two other Appeal Court Judges.

The contradictory nature of the judgments is no basis for sound legal principle or for the setting aside of the parents’ wishes.”

ENDS.