Killing Babies? The same as letting them die naturally if they are

[leftyladyfrommo]

severely disabled?

Is this the same? It surely isn't to me.

Are we doing severely disabled infants a favor in keeping them alive? With no quality of life and with no hope of a future?

The Church of England is just stating that sometimes it is kinder to let severely disabled infants die.

But the press is all calling in "killing" of infants.

I think maybe we have crossed over the "crazy" line on this issue.

[Iris]

1. I've always thought that parents should be allowed to make this choice.

If they believe the decision to allow their child to die naturally is what is best for the child, that belief should be respected. I don't like the idea of withholding food and/or water if the child can take it in, but any other extreme interventions should be left up to the parents to decide.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

2. Big difference to me between letting nature take its course

and administering something lethal. I am for the former and against the latter.

[benEzra]

3. As long as the parents have the choice to save the child's life...

and some doctor/hospital/insurance company can't say "yeah, we could save this child's life, but let's let him/her die to save some money."

I just posted the following in the other thread on the topic:


just to keep things in perspective, here's one of those "desperately ill babies" six or seven years later:



That's after two open-heart surgeries (first one at age 10 days, second just before his 4th birthday), seven angioplasties, a Ladd procedure, and too much other stuff to keep track of. A happy kid with a pretty good prognosis for living a reasonably normal life.

I understand letting children die who just don't have a chance, but a "just let 'em die 'cause they're expensive" approach would really really bother me. Because the kid in the photo above is my son. Yeah, it's been a struggle; he has immunological and speech/motor issues along with the cardiac stuff, and he can't eat solid food--long story--and we're perpetually on the verge of bankruptcy due to medical expenses (can't get medicaid because we make enough to pay taxes, you know the drill).

Yes, recovering from heart surgery isn't easy, we almost lost him both times, and he even went through full-blown, cold-turkey morphine withdrawal after his second surgery (couldn't do methadone due to interaction issues, so he had the shakes and everything for days), and geez, that was hard. Yes, heart surgery really, really sucks. But dying and missing out on life sucks more--otherwise, why would anybody ever choose to have heart surgery? And he wants to LIVE. He's got his whole life ahead of him, and believe me, he enjoys every minute of it.

I understanding the need for a debate on the truly hopeless cases, but if a doctor, a hospital, an insurance company, or a government agency, said to let a kid like this die because we'd rather spend money on other projects--that'd be pretty damn heartless, IMHO.

[gollygee]

4. It isn't a decision for a government or an insurance company

it's a decision for families to make after consulting medical professionals. Like so many other medical decisions.