Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Moral responsibility

Does a website that bills itself as a support site have a moral responsibilty to examine where the support leads? I am struck by the fact that the community at MotheringdotCommune appears to have an unusually high incidence of preventable perinatal deaths. Many of them occur after risk factors have developed and women have sought support for their decisions to ignore (or fail to seek) medical advice. From what I have read elsewhere, and what I have observed on MDC, posts that are not "supportive", in other words, post that do not agree with the decision to ignore medical advice, are routinely deleted.

Does the staff at MDC have a moral obligation to review their policy in light of the high number of perinatal deaths? Do the staff members bear moral responsibility for deliberately deleting posts that warn of medical dangers, thereby depriving others of that information? Or does MDC bear no responsibility for the bad outcomes that occur when women are supported in choices that ultimately lead to a baby's death?

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