Persuasive Essay On Fetal Surgery

Advances in medicine have allowed us to save babies lives before they are even born.
A mother who is stressed with a concern of the health of her baby can be put at ease with the implementation of fetal surgery. While life can be greatly improved, this can go too far. Fetal surgery is a complex yet beneficial procedure that is up for ethical debate and can save lives in utero.
Practiced for decades now, fetal surgery is a highly complex subject both medically and ethically. In medicine, there is a great amount of stress coming from both the parents and physicians due to concerns with the fetus’ unknown anomaly and whether it can be fixed. The procedure involves cutting the mother's abdomen open so they can then cut a small incision in the uterus to expose as much of the fetus as possible. Then, it is lifted out of the uterus so while tending to the issues it stays connected to the placenta to preserve fetal life. For example, if a tumor is seen on the heart of the fetus on an ultrasound, they could perform fetal cardiac surgery to

While these surgeries may be life-saving for the fetus or improve the quality of life greatly, the cost-effectiveness is very insufficient for many. Evidence that neonatal surgery is cost-effective is very hard to find due to the fact that it is difficult to have long-term follow-ups with the patients and the quality life cannot be determined until later in life. For example, prenatal surgery for repairing of myelomeningocele, otherwise known as spina bifida, saves $2,066,778 for every one hundred cases repaired rather than if they were to be repaired postnatally (NCBI). This show that even though this care is extensive and expensive, it is proven to have its benefits. Furthermore, neonatal surgery can be predicted to have significant innovations in the