ABSTRACT

Court cases frequently cause media storms. Typically, this happens when there is something sensational about the case; far more rarely, it happens when something philosophical is at issue. In Autumn 2000, England was gripped by the latter variety. The case of “Jodie and Mary,” Siamese twins, is well known.1 At the heart of the controversy were the Lord Justices who argued that Mary could be intentionally and deliberately killed by the doctors charged with her care. The court, to its credit, was explicit that at issue was an operation that involved the direct, intentional killing of an innocent child and this raised the question how to assess the “murderous intent” of the surgeons (*773 & 791). In a ninety-page judgment, the Lord Justices found ways to justify the killing so that the doctors could not be prosecuted for homicide when they separated the twins. The commentary on the case by moral theologians and philosophers has divided on the issue, with a substantial part of Catholic commentary denying that Mary was in fact murdered.