Posted on 06/05/2005 2:29:56 PM PDT by wagglebee
BRITAIN’S top medical ethics expert has urged doctors to let the most premature babies die, with treatment offered only in exceptional cases.
Baroness Warnock believes Britain should follow Holland in setting an age limit below which babies would not routinely be resuscitated.
She says this would prevent doctors competing for the “triumph” of keeping babies alive at increasingly young ages even though they may not survive in the long term or may be left severely disabled.
Warnock’s comments were backed in part by Britain’s most senior paediatrician, who said the setting of a lower limit should be considered.
In Holland, doctors do not routinely administer intensive care to babies born before 25 weeks of pregnancy. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, a medical think tank, is considering proposing similar guidelines in Britain. It is consulting doctors, nurses and parents about setting a 24-week limit.
Warnock, who helped frame laws on embryo research and fertility treatment, supports setting an age limit, with exceptions for babies who show they have a strong chance of living to become healthy children.
“Some doctors and nurses get competitive about the triumph of keeping these tiny, premature, babies alive,” she said. “It would be better to set a minimum age than to have no form of scrutiny or regulation. Below a certain age of gestation no baby should be kept going without very thorough scrutiny of what the prognosis for that baby is.”
Although most doctors are opposed to an age limit, Sir Alan Craft, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said it was a legitimate option to consider. “One possible course of action would be not to intervene with any 23-week-old babies unless they breathe completely and spontaneously themselves,” he said.
Craft, speaking in a personal capacity, argues that, as it is not possible to tell which babies born at 23 weeks or less will survive, doctors are forced to consider resuscitating all of them, although the majority have no chance of living.
Once doctors have started assisting these babies, he says, parents find it difficult to agree to treatment being withdrawn, even though it is of no help.
The Nuffield council is investigating the costs of raising the disabled children that premature babies often become as well as the expense of intensive care in neonatal units.
A study of the most premature babies showed most went on to suffer disabilities. The EPICure study of babies born at 25 weeks or less, led by researchers at Nottingham University, found that, by the age of six, only 20% of surviving children had no disabilities; 22% had severe disabilities, including cerebral palsy; while 34% had milder problems such as a squint.
In addition, it found that only 11% of all babies born at 23 weeks survived. Since the study began, however, care has improved and the figure is believed to be closer to 20%.
Bliss, the premature baby charity, says about 50 babies born at 23 weeks survive every year and it would be wrong to deny them the chance to live.
Bonnie Green, head of external relations, said: “We would be very unhappy. It is expensive to keep adults who may not pull through in intensive care but, in their case, we do not say ‘let’s use the money for something else’.”
Those "experts" should be hung.
Nah, take away their food and water for a few weeks, that way they can fulfill their wishes of dying of "euphoria."
I wonder, if it were her child or her grandchild, would she be saying the same thing?
Whatever, this is wrong! No one has the right to determine if a baby has the right to live or die. Only God does. Once a baby is born, doctors and nurses have the duty, by the oaths they have taken, to do everything possible to help that baby to live and be as healthy as possible.
If these proposals were accepted, many scientific advances in neonatology would never happen. Since utilitarians can't accept any other argument, they might listen to that one.
This used to be the norm. The famous jockey Willie Shoemaker was so small at birth that the delivering doctor placed him on the kitchen table to die. After the doctor left, Shoe's grandmother placed him in the oven for warmth. The oven, acting like an incubator, kept him alive. The rest is history.
Ah well, I hope they enjoy their Europia while it lasts. When everything eventually falls apart over there (does anyone honestly think it won't?), we Americans will no doubt be called upon to clean up the mess again.
The new infanticidal paradigm is to freely and openly acknowledge that yes, a fetus is a living baby, and yes, abortion is the deliberate killing of a baby. The argument is then moved from such matters of demonstrable fact to a supposed moral dilemma about the value of life. Since they can no longer credibly claim that they aren't killing babies, they'll say "Yeah, OK, we are killing babies. But it's justified because..." (insert some reason such as disabilities, quality of life, health of the mother, being unwanted, etc.)
They are vile, bloodthirsty people.
At 15 weeks, babies don't even have lungs. Even at 24 weeks, the lungs barely function. From what I've read, the survival rate at 24w is around 50% and of the survivors, the significant morbidity rate is about the same.
There's a HUGE difference between 24w and 28w. Survival at 28w is around 90%.
Who's to say we won't develop artificial wombs & placentae?
I would have to agree with Sloth's response in post 70. At some point it may be viable to develop some way to keep the fetus alive far before they are able to breathe on their own.
It may even be determined that this technique is preferable to allowing that fetus to breathe on their own even at weekly markers that now see good survival rates.
The health of the fetus may be more easily balanced by prolonging the simulated stay in the womb, thus allowing lungs and other organs to mature before they are ushered into the external environment.
Unlocking the secrets to early fetus survivability hing on expanding our current knowledge, something that won't take place without pushing the envelope.
I know God and by His mercy the deligence of the NICU staff nurtured this sweet child to excellent results.
At 6 months she's almost caught up in weight and length and is perfectly healthy, happy and chubby.
She is a beautiful little girl, with big blue eyes and a sweet disposition.
My fear is what England is doing or might allow ...
....could happen here.
He started life so tiny that the country doctor didn't expect him to live and told grannie to put him in a shoebox and set him next to the stove.
Well it worked!--they fed him with a dropper.
England continues on as their Church does, falling into the great abyss.
Countries are judged as much as thri citizens. It is a matter of time.
Why should this surprise any of us. It is the 21st-century version of eugenics, flowering from the abortion culture of the late 20th Century. Breed only those worthy of bred, discard the deformed, sterilize the rest, abort as much as you can. This is the same mentality used by Hitler in his ovens and gas chambers. It continues today.
We already let retarded babies die, cleft lip babies, etc, right in the hospitals. Soon this will be extended to older children with incurable diseases, old people, more Terri Schiavos everywhere, then perhaps, as Hitler had it, retarded, insane, criminals, political prisoners. Just hope you are on the right side of politics when your turn comes.
"Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to Me."-- Jesus Christ
Yikes! Sister/lover of Janet Reno perhaps?
This is what Hillarycare will lead to.
I have read that Hillary won't allow us to treat unhealthy people EVEN IF WE HAVE THE MONEY to pay for it ourselves, if it is not allowed under Hillarycare (government-controlled medicine).
This woman is mad.
Really? My father was a twin born prematurely in 1922 and weighed 2 pounds, 4 ounces. He went on to fight WW2, both in the Army Air Corps and Patton's Third Army. He landed at Normandy and went on to liberate Buchenwald. After the war he was with the NYPD for 20 years, most of it as a detective. I suppose my grandmother and grandfather should have listed to this POS. Yeah, right!
The right Biblical quote for the times we live in!
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