Were They Always Planning on Killing Claire?
In the 2nd flashback scene we see Zeke and Ethan having it out. Zeke makes a reference to the fact that “He” is going to have to change plans because Claire was abducted prior to the list being made up. Now we don’t know who “He” is for sure but we can assume that it is someone high up the Dharma foodchain.
Anyway, it wouldn’t surprise me if the original plan was simply to remove the baby and send Claire back or wait for Claire to have the baby naturally and send her back. However, that plan was scrapped for the more immediate c-section and die on the table approach.
Ethan goes out of his way to be nice to Claire. He explains the plan for taking the baby and sending Claire back. Why would he lie? Claire was so doped up that she wouldn’t have cared what was going on. Ethan could have said that they were going to leave her to die on the operation table and she would have giggled about it and said “OK”.
For the sake of argument let’s say that this is correct. What’s the significance? Well, my guess is that we will find out later that Ethan wasn’t really a bad guy. Misguided, yes. Duped, absolutely. Sincerely trying to do what he thinks is best - I think so. There is a common theme in several Lost episodes - “The Greater Good”. I think that when all is said and done, many of the folks at Dharma will fall into this misguided justification. Many will believe that while there are sacrifices being made that is really a small price to pay for the advancements Dharma is making.
Only time will tell if this theory plays out.
