State Ordered Euthanasia

[Tellos Athenaios]

I'm sorry, where in the reporting was it established (or even suggested) that the doctors' primary motivation was money? When you're talking about a baby in a permanent vegetative state, parents asking for risky operations, and a life that is only sustained by mechanical aid, the issues are a little bit more difficult than "Evil lubruls want to kill babiez." Please. Ease up on your rhetorical gas pedal a little and think about this issue; Don deserves no less.

My take: The doctors were within their rights to deny the tracheotomy. Here are the really relevant passages from the article for me:

Agreed.

So this couple had a baby that died of nearly exactly the same condition nine years ago. Yet they went ahead with another pregnancy, and apparently did not do the appropriate tests, or go the in vitro route to weed out whatever genetic condition they have.

Easy on the “stupid” gas pedal here. First borns tend to have all sorts of medical defects or complications, so it's not immediately apparent why the couple should think in terms of genetic diseases to explain the horrible fate of their daughter. It's quite understandable that they didn't make that connection, and for all we know the doctors which treated their daughter didn't either. In fact, we don't even have much to go on with the “it's the genes, stupid” leap to conclusions.

There's a very serious question about this couple's judgment.

Well, that's the whole cutting extra holes in your baby thing so it can die a wretched death at home instead of pulling the tube so it can die a wretched death in the hospital. (Clearly the couple don't see it this way, so it's not an argument in their reasoning.) To me that simply means inflicting a lot more misery on your baby out of a belief that “children should be with their parents” or “children should be at home” which does seem to be the type of argument the parents are grasping for support. I can sort of see where this would come from, even why they might let such an argument dominate their reasoning. Still, I do think this is all very mistaken and not at all doing the baby a favour.

If you have a genetic condition that has already caused one of your young to die before their first birthday, you have a very real and serious obligation to exercise caution when you next conceive, assuming you do conceive again.

But presumably this condition is a big if. One baby is not necessarily a genetic condition, it could be extremely though luck, la vie, or what you want to call it. Simple alternative: your first born child dies because of miscarriage in 4th month. Does that mean the mother should not have another baby because it is quite possible her immune system forced the baby out? (Meaning the next baby might well be rejected, too, since such miscarriages only get more likely as the immune system gets better at detecting and evicting babies from the womb.)