new type of "late term abortion"

[mrhnau]

Is your baby sick when an infant? a new group out of London encourages killing them then. I guess partial birth abortions were not enough...

The Sunday Times newspaper said today the proposal was in reaction to the number of such children who were surviving because of medical advances. The college argued "active euthanasia" should be considered for the good of families, to spare parents the emotional burden and financial hardship of bringing up the sickest babies.


The proposal is contained in the college's submission to an inquiry into ethical issues raised by the policy of prolonging life in newborn babies.

anyone here a premie? Anyone have to have a child spend time in the emergeny room shortly after birth? were you one of those?

This I did not know:

In the Netherlands mercy killing was permitted for a range of incurable conditions, including severe spina bifida and the painful skin condition called epidermolysis bullosa, The Sunday Times said.

 

[SFC JeffJ]

Genetically, I can see the logic behind it. Morally it's repulsive. Can everybody say eugenics?

Jeff

 

[terryl965]

Genetically, I can see the logic behind it. Morally it's repulsive. Can everybody say eugenics?

Jeff

I'm with you Jeff

 

[Makalakumu]

Genetically, I can see the logic behind it.

There are a few things wrong with this logic. Namely, most of these children do not live long enough to reproduce and those that do, do not reproduce.

Morally it's repulsive.

At first glance, from our judeo/christian background, I would agree. However, I think that it could also be argued that it is equally morally repulsive to consciously let these children live knowing that their broken little bodies will torture them to death over a matter of YEARS. Thus killing the child would be considered the kindest way to ease their suffering.

Can everybody say eugenics?

Eugenics is different. This mostly dealt with people who could actively reproduce. Intelligence testing was a large part of the eugenics movement.

 

[SFC JeffJ]

There are a few things wrong with this logic. Namely, most of these children do not live long enough to reproduce and those that do, do not reproduce.



At first glance, from our judeo/christian background, I would agree. However, I think that it could also be argued that it is equally morally repulsive to consciously let these children live knowing that their broken little bodies will torture them to death over a matter of YEARS. Thus killing the child would be considered the kindest way to ease their suffering.



Eugenics is different. This mostly dealt with people who could actively reproduce. Intelligence testing was a large part of the eugenics movement.

You bring up some great points. I was thinkinging along the wrong lines. I'm going to have to do a little more thinking on this.

Jeff

 

[michaeledward]

I suppose if we wanted to have a discussion about euthanasia, starting the discussion by calling it abortion is a clear unbiased, morally neutral way to start the conversation.

 

[mrhnau]

I suppose if we wanted to have a discussion about euthanasia, starting the discussion by calling it abortion is a clear unbiased, morally neutral way to start the conversation.

clearly And we all know that noone here has ANY bias whatsoever.

on to the topic... So, what will define a problematic child? What if they are premature? Maybe got injured during deliver (perhaps umbelical cord around neck?). Perhaps they will be retarted in some way? Or have a terminal/painful disease? Who is going to be the individual that decides which condition is worth saving, and which worth terminating? We have a hard enough time deciding euthanasia with seniors or terminal disease where they at least have the choice about terminating their own life (barring conditions that prevent that). At least seniors can have a living will for instance. Just like with abortions, the child has no option, its up to the parents/doctors to decide if the child is worth saving.

 

[Bigshadow]

There are a few things wrong with this logic. Namely, most of these children do not live long enough to reproduce and those that do, do not reproduce.

At first glance, from our judeo/christian background, I would agree. However, I think that it could also be argued that it is equally morally repulsive to consciously let these children live knowing that their broken little bodies will torture them to death over a matter of YEARS. Thus killing the child would be considered the kindest way to ease their suffering.

That is a good argument! In fact, if we were not able to engineer ourselves out of the survival of the fittest circle, they would not live anyhow. In nature, these things are dealt with in a very cold way. Also, in a sense nature is a form of eugenics, because only the strong survive, thus are the only ones to reproduce, and the cycle begins again.

However, this whole topic is quite disturbing. As a parent, I don't know that I could do that, even though I know the consequences of the choices.

 

[bydand]

I suppose if we wanted to have a discussion about euthanasia, starting the discussion by calling it abortion is a clear unbiased, morally neutral way to start the conversation.

One of the few times I have to agree with you.

That is a good argument! In fact, if we were not able to engineer ourselves out of the survival of the fittest circle, they would not live anyhow. In nature, these things are dealt with in a very cold way. Also, in a sense nature is a form of eugenics, because only the strong survive, thus are the only ones to reproduce, and the cycle begins again.

However, this whole topic is quite disturbing. As a parent, I don't know that I could do that, even though I know the consequences of the choices.

Agree 100% Bigshadow. As a parent I am glad I never had to face this issue. I hate to see any of my children hurt in even the smallest way, so knowing your actions are going to "doom" them to a life of pain and suffering would be horrible; on the other hand, making the choice to end it for them would be a terrible option as well. It would feel as though you are putting them on the same level as putting down a dog. I am just so thankful my Ruffians are healthy and active.

 

[shesulsa]

Can you say bye-bye to the likes of Stephen Hawkins? Christy Brown?

There has been a movement in the U.S. for this as well, a Medical Ethics professor at Johns Hopkins ( I think it's this one, but I'm honestly not sure ) purports ending young life upon infantile diagnosis of moderate to severe life-long disabilities and in some cases, even short-term disabilities or deformities.

Where this would be most applicable and appreciated would be severe, irrepairable disabilities for those who would, indeed, suffer. Some are so involved they are unaware they are suffering, and this is where the ethics are the biggest issue - is the suffering of the person with the affliction or is the suffering the family's? and if it is the family's does this warrant euthanasia?

Here's another article on the issue from the American Medical Association.

There are also people who beat medical odds every day - people who should be dead but aren't, mute but aren't, paralyzed but aren't - unable to be productive yet they are. Then there are those who indeed couldn't and are indeed going to die and present as little warriors, understanding things most adults won't comprehend or find awe-inspiring who inject hope, love and acceptance in so very many of us.

Would we miss them? Or would they be collateral damage?

This is a decision which, in my opinion, should be left to the family alone.

 

[Kacey]

This issue is very difficult for me. On an individual basis, it is very hard for me to say that a particular child should not be saved, but the cost to society for some of these children is enormous, and their quality of life is very poor. The most disturbing part is that this could easily become the thin edge of a potentially very thick wedge; where do you draw the line?

Twelve or 13 years ago, I was working as a paraprofessional (teacher's aide) in a severe needs program. There were two children in the program who had been born prematurely. One was born at 6 1/2 months, was profoundly hard of hearing, had mild cerebral palsy affecting his entire body, and was born with an intestinal disorder that required multiple surgeries. At the age of 7, he had no useful communication skills, was not toilet trained, and would only eat food that had been pureed (due to complications from the surgery, solid food made him sick, so he wouldn't eat it). Over the course of the school year, he learned something between 5 and 10 signs - food, water, toilet, etc. - to begin to be able to communicate his basic needs. This amount of progress took an entire school year. In the meantime, he had tantrums when he couldn't express his needs (often) and often tried to claw or bite people who changed his diaper. I finished my teaching certificate and moved to another school district; I don't know what happened to him after that.

The other was a girl who was born at 5 1/2 months, before her skull formed - which it never did; when her head moved, you could see her brain move under her scalp, unless she was wearing her helmet (most of the time). She had a permanent tracheotomy, and therefore couldn't speak; her fine motor skills were not good enough to even attempt basic signs; we only knew she could hear because she would smile when we said her name. She ate (if you want to call it that) liquid Enfamil through a stomach tube. She was in a wheelchair, and could only move her arms and hands enough to hold a marker in her fist and wave it across a piece of paper; I can't call what she did writing, or even scribbling. Because she needed to be at a school that could meet her needs, her bus ride each way to school was 50 minutes long. One day her tracheotomy clogged, and the bus driver had to pull over and call an ambulance, as neither he nor the bus aide had any training in how to help her. After being taken to the hospital, it was determined that she had pneumonia, which she succumbed to after several months of treatment. She was 10 years old.

There was another girl in the program who had a hereditary genetic disorder that caused toxins to builld up in her brain, reducing her intelligence... whch, due to the disorder, was never high to begin with. She peaked, intellectually, when she learned to eat with a spoon, a skill she had lost by the time I met her. She could stand (in a stander; her balance was quite poor), wore a diaper, had no speech, and was slowly dying. When I knew her she was 11; her life expectancy was somewhere around 15. I finished my teaching certificate and moved to another school district; I don't know what happened to her after that.

More recently, as a teacher, I knew a family that had several children with Huntington's Chorea. When a person has one copy of the gene, causing the adult onset variation, s/he usually dies in his 30s. These children had 2 copies, causing the juvenile onset variant. They were happy, outgoing, communicative children who knew they were dying, and had known it all their lives. All three of them died in high school.

All of these children had illnesses that were diagnosed at birth or shortly thereafter, and would have been affected by this issue. I could go on, but I won't; it depresses me.

Despite their difficulties, all of these were loved by their parents, who did the best they could with the circumstances handed to them. Many of them would not have survived birth or infancy 10 or 20 years before they were born; for the 2 who were premature, the technology that saved their lives also caused, or exacerbated, many of their problems... but for others born in similar circumstances, things have been much better. There is no way to know, for many of them, how much damage there is until they begin to develop... or fail to do so. In the abstract, it is easy to say that these children and others like them are a burden on society, and should not be allowed to live - or at least that their parents should have the option of withholding medical care, along the same lines as a living will for people with terminal illnesses - when one begins to deal with individual children, to know them, the issues are not so clear. Were I to have a child born with severe problems, and the option to not save the child were available, I don't know what I would do. I hope to never find out.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Humanity has moved outside of the circle of life. In the past, only the strongest, fittest, smartest survived. The weak, the sick, the crippled, were gradually taken out of the mix by predators. The old and unable to continue contibuting to the group were either left behind or went off on their own to save the tribe the burden.

Today, we spend fortunes on so called extreme measures to preserve these lives, even when the quality of that life is decades in a vegetable state, or in pain, or drugged into semi-oblivion to dull the pain. Dying with dignity at an old age is not allowed as we must put you on machines that breath for you, pump blood for you, and filter waste for you, all the while pumping you with IV tubes full of chemicals. So that you can "live", without being able to so much as fart without help.

In nature, the slow, the stupid, the clueless, would become dinner, or mulch.
Today, in cities, you have to pause while they wander aimlessly down the street, 4 abreast, on their cell phones or ipods, avoiding that evil nasty sidewalk, and giggling about blocking traffic.

We take our cat in and have them put down, and label that humane, yet Aunt Frita doesn't rate the same courtesy as a house cat, and gets to spend her last decade on machines, in pain, and bound to her bed.

The puppy born without its limbs is usually killed at birth....humans however aren't, and we spend fortunes on trying to overcome these defects.

Children are born, who will never, ever, develop past the mental age of a newborn, yet the parents are required to not only care for this individual, but take responsibility for all the problems that result from this individuals inability to mature. If at 36 this person reproduces, it's not them who have to deal with the fall out, it's their parents. You can't legally sterilize them either. So, you are condemned to a lifetime of parenting....something that ends for most of us after a mere 18-21 years.

Personally, and I realize this is an unpopular opinion, I think that within reason, certain mental defects shouldn't survive past birth. To prolong them past what nature would allow, is infact the inhumane. If we would do it for our pets and label it humane, then doing it for ourselves is also, humane.

 

[FearlessFreep]

but the cost to society for some of these children is enormous

As an aside but I think this is a dangerous direction to start thinking. When we start thinking of the value of a person's life in regards to what they cost the society, what we are bssically saying is that a person's worth is X amount of dollars. The other side of that question is 'how much does a person contribute to society?' I think the danger of that is obvious. When whether a person is allowed to live or die depends on their monetary worth or cost to society....who of those fortunate enough to be alive today would want their life...or death...so judged?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

We already think that way. Or, the health insurance conglomerates do. But thats another rant.

 

[Kacey]

but the cost to society for some of these children is enormous

As an aside but I think this is a dangerous direction to start thinking. When we start thinking of the value of a person's life in regards to what they cost the society, what we are bssically saying is that a person's worth is X amount of dollars. The other side of that question is 'how much does a person contribute to society?' I think the danger of that is obvious. When whether a person is allowed to live or die depends on their monetary worth or cost to society....who of those fortunate enough to be alive today would want their life...or death...so judged?

I don't disagree - but it already is a fact of life that society as a whole bows to the almighty dollar. Many of these children are saved at an incredible cost - not just in terms of money, but in terms of time, emotional strain, and resources (space in the Neo-natal ICU is often at a premium, given the cost of the equipment and the fact that babies can't wait), and many of them live short lives bounded by their various ailments. Leaving money aside, at what point does quality of life become more important than quantity of life? Who decides? What are the criteria?

We already think that way. Or, the health insurance conglomerates do. But thats another rant.

Truly. But at the same time, it feeds into this issue. Medical technology has made leaps and bounds in its ability to save these young lives, to preserve them well beyond what nature would do - but the cost is high. Should this be a point in determing who lives and who dies? And where is the line drawn?

 

[Ping898]

I guess what I have a problem with it who gives you or me or a doctor the right to determine the worth of someone's life. I feel that every life has worth no matter how long the person lives, so matter what way the person lives and I amd some doctor have no right to say because this person has X or will have a life of pain they should die today.

As previously mentioned people defy the odds every day, but also if these people don't exist, then there is no incentive to find the cure, there is no face to associate with the disease/deformity or whatever. I think we are a better world for the contributions of people like Stephen Hawkings. I was at a talk the other day about interfaces used on wheelchairs to help people like him move on their own. That same technology was being ported to the robotic devices that were used after 9/11 to go through the wreckage where rescue workers could not, to find survivors, to improve the devices for the next time they are needed. That to me makes it worth it....

 

[FearlessFreep]

Humanity has moved outside of the circle of life. In the past, only the strongest, fittest, smartest survived. The weak, the sick, the crippled, were gradually taken out of the mix by predators. The old and unable to continue contibuting to the group were either left behind or went off on their own to save the tribe the burden.

I've been thiking a lot about this in recent months. There are many animals that are social animals, like ants and bees, which could not survive individually very well but can survive socially because of their support structure. In this case individual members may be sacrificed without compunction or even much impact, for the greater good if needed.

I guess the question one could ask is, as social creatures, are we more like bees, more like semi-social prey like deer, or more like semi-socila predators like wolves, in regards to how we relate to each other, especially our less-than-perfect members?

However, we are also far different than any others:

For one thing we can contemplate or own mortality and the impliications of it, or at least engage in interaction with each other in our consideration of those issues (deer may aware of their mortality, but they don't blog about it). So 'letting the sick die off' if a bit more complicated for us because we can wonder about the implications of such as action and weight the costs or possible ramifications (maybe not accurately, but at least we can pull out our scales - rabbits don't look at a wounded rabbit and discuss if it's worth saving or not)

But one thing that has occurred to me that I don't often see talked about in terms of 'survival of the fittest' and humans is that we seemed to have changed the rules a bit. As physical creatures we are relatively frail. However, our intelligence and social-ness have combined into language and cooperation in ways unmatched, and that has led to a bit of a shifting of the rules for 'survival of the fittest'. For one thing, we have redefined 'fitness' to mean rather artificial things within our own social constructions (such as wealth and power). More interestingly, though is that we are the only creature who can proactively eliminate threats. A mountain lion kills a deer, the rest of the deer just get wary or move off. A lion attacks a vilage, the villagers can gang together and go kill the lion. No other creaure but humans can counter threats in such a way. Also, while we as humans are not very adaptable physically, we can augment our physical environment tp be what we need it to be. Other creatures can adapt, or not, to physical surroundings and nvironments based on what they are, we can adapt to any environment we need to based on our ability to change our immediate environment. From sunscreen to fur coats to scuba gear to spaceships, we are the ultimate extremophile. All driven from intelligence and social structure

We have redefined 'fittest'; we have redefined what it takes to 'survive', and we can discuss what that means.

So now what?

 

[BrandiJo]

this is just wrong, i wonder what might have happend with me in Londen i spent my first 6 months in the hospital in NICU because i was born premature, with out properly functioning lungs and heart problems, my first few months of life wernt cheap and my parnets didnt have much money...would i have been a mercy killing? or would the drs have wanted to off me so i didnt burden my family? well hell in some countries maybe just cus im a female that would have been enough for me not to be worth the cost and suffering

​

 

[Phoenix44]

Firstly, let's be clear that the OB/GYN organization DID NOT advocate euthanizing these newborns, but called for an open discussion of the topic.

In many cases, it isn't a matter of euthanizing these newborns...it's a matter of keeping them alive by extraordinary means. If euthanasia is playing God, so are some of these extraordinary means.

In my mind, a very big issue is this: if our society demands that severely disabled newborns be kept alive by extraordinary means, shouldn't our society be willing to pay for these extraordinary means? Or is it fair that a 20 week gestation newborn be kept alive by extraordinary means, and then we present the mom and dad with a bill for, lets say, $1.5 million, and then expect them to, somehow, manage the needs of that child for the rest of it's life?

I don't know what the right answer is. But if we, as a society, are not willing to allocate the resources, then in my mind, as a society, it is immoral to play God in this manner. I think we should put our money where our mouth is, and with healthcare resources diminishing, and increasingly shifting the expense to the individual, I don't see that happening.

 

[Makalakumu]

First of all, just to let you know where I'm coming from with this, I'm pro-choice and I'm an Atheist. I look for the truth with reason and believe in nothing without evidence.

Therefore, I reject arguments that we should keep these children alive because it is God's Law.

I also reject calling this anything but what it really is...

Infanticide.

As horrible as this word may sound to our ears, it is part of what it means to be a human. I read in an athropology textbook (of which I am having a difficult time recalling the name) that every culture that has ever existed has practiced infanticide. There is ample evidence that every society from our hunter/gatherer ancestors to our ancestors in the middle ages performed it whenever they couldn't provide for new children. There is ample evidence that children with disabilities were summarily killed when they were born. In fact, in Sparta, there was a particular hill that such children were hurled off of. There bones were discovered at the base by physical anthropologists.

So what changed?

According to this same book, in the middle ages, midwives helped perform the task of infanticide for parents who could not take care of new babies for whatever reason. When the Church began to persecute them, the Church turned this into a Satanic act in order to deamonize them. Thus the roots of the modern churches resistence to infanticide and abortion were sown.

Now, in our new Enlightened Age, we find ourselves faced with the same choice that tens of thousands of years of ancestors were faced with. And I think that it is important that we consider the reason why this behavior evolved in the first place. The child suffers. The parents suffer. Death is a respite.