The Church of England has broken with tradition dogma by calling for doctors to be allowed to let sick newborn babies die.
Christians have long argued that life should preserved at all costs - but a bishop representing the national church has now sparked controversy by arguing that there are occasions when it is compassionate to leave a severely disabled child to die.
One of the factors that the Bishop who wrote the report said should be considered was the cost of keeping the baby alive.
It goes on to give a summary of the reason:
"The church also urges all the parties involved in care for critically ill babies should be realistic in their expectations, demands, and claims.
The submission says: "The principle of humility asks that members of the medical profession restrain themselves from claiming greater powers to heal than they can deliver.
"It asks that parents restrain themselves from demanding the impossible."
Now, my first thought on this is that it is a slippery slope. Nazi Germany advocated this sort of thing, and it ended in the attempted extermination of all undesireables in Europe, including Jews, homosexuals, Gypsys, Slavs, and others. It also ended in the forced sterilization of those who had disabilities.
But in response to the above quote, it isn't that doctors are claiming greater powers to heal then they can deliver, it is that every life is precious in God's eyes. We aren't the ones to say that a disabled baby has a life that is not worth living. And so, we are to give every baby the chance to live.
Many babies with disabilities die. But many do not. At the end of the article was a comment about a 22 week old baby who ended up being fine, just needing glasses.
I think this would also lead to the economic and financial position of the parents being taken into consideration. The parents have little money, so we let the baby die.
This whole idea is putting a value on life. This life is worth saving, this one isn't. And at some point people will begin to move that value down. This baby won't have a loving family. This baby won't live in a family with enough money.
Ultimately we don't know what will happen with a baby. It may live and be fine. It may die. It may live but have severe problems that would seem to make that life not worth living.
But who are we to say that a life is not worth living? Just because it is different from us doesn't mean that it is a "bad" life.
But the principle is that God has made that baby, and God wanted it to be born, so do whatever you can to keep it alive. Every life is precious. God makes the value decision, not us.
4 comments:
This reminds me of an EXCELLENT article I read this past week:
http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/84045.html?
Shrider column: Disabled newborns have right to live
Nov 13 2006
Last week, while most of us were up to our eyeballs in election results, a shocker of a story from England surfaced for a moment and was gone, barely noticed by America's mainstream media.
In a statement that would have sparked worldwide outrage just a decade ago, one of Britain's leading medical schools, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, suggested last week that doctors should consider "active euthanasia" for seriously disabled newborns.
Not that the doctors are calling for the immediate implementation of such a policy, reported the London Daily Telegraph. They just want folks to start talking about it, to consider its merits.
"A very disabled child can mean a disabled family," said the college in its formal submission to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. "If life-shortening and deliberate interventions to kill infants were available, they might have an impact on obstetric decision-making, even preventing some late abortions, as some parents would be more confident about continuing a pregnancy and taking a risk on outcome."
There's a silver lining for you -- killing newborns equals fewer abortions.
The issue of infant euthanasia in America is generally debated under the radar of the public's collective consciousness, a subject usually limited to medical and academic journals. But, really, given the raging debate over "partial-birth" abortion and adult euthanasia, is anyone truly surprised that our "sickest kids" are next on the list?
"It doesn't surprise me, but I wish it did," said Jani Pittman, a Bakersfield mom whose 25-year-old daughter, Isabelle, has disabilities so severe she requires round-the-clock care. "Where are we drawing the line here? If we can euthanize newborns, what about Belle? What about me in 20 years if I were to have Alzheimer's?"
The practice of euthanasia, said the British doctors, will spare parents the emotional and financial hardships inherent in raising severely handicapped children. But Pittman and other parents of such children say the proposal is nothing more than a plan for social engineering, a way of ridding society of children it no longer values and doesn't want to support.
"It isn't any different from Hitler -- it's a master race thing, a survival of the fittest thing," Pittman said.
That slippery slope we started down more than three decades ago with the legalization of abortion is getting more slippery all the time. Voluntary, physician-assisted suicide is already legal in Oregon and in some European countries like the Netherlands, where lawmakers are already considering the pros and cons -- mostly the pros, no doubt -- of infant euthanasia.
Like most parents of healthy children, I can't begin to comprehend the burden, or the joys, of raising a severely handicapped child. But Ron and Marti McCraw, whose 20-year-old daughter, Kelsey, is less functional than a 3-month-old, are experts on the subject.
Americans simply cannot afford to euthanize children like Kelsey, they said, because it's through people like her that society learns compassion, empathy and the value of life.
"What society is trying to do is eliminate as many hard times as they can, but there's a really deep joy in walking a difficult path and making it," Marti says. "A muscle gets stronger with exercise because it's asked to go farther and do more. We will become a weak and useless people if we keep trying to erase difficulties from our lives."
The London docs got it wrong. Children like Isabelle and Kelsey will always be among us, if we're lucky. We can either accept that reality and support these children and their families or buy into the horrid philosophy that Hitler had the right idea all along.
Being a parent now, I personally can't fathom the idea of NOT fighting for my child's life at all costs.
Thanks, Amy, for your comment as well!
Of course, the problem with Will's argument is the idea that God provides the value for that little life. British society has largely rejected God, and we know a large number of priests/pastors have likewise rejected God as anything more than a concept. :(
We need to reestablish the idea that life is inherently valuable. Thus, any life is worth fighting for, no matter who or what they are. The only rational reason to violate this principle are cases where the life in question is an obvious threat to the society at large: murderers, killer animals, etc. These babies are of no threat to society. Their lives should be fought for.
I agree with you Nomad, however I think that the only way to reinstate that life is inherently valuable is to bring back God and ethics based on the Bible. Among all the religions of the world, Christianity, and Judaism as well, are the only 2 that have a truly well rounded view of the value of life. All others have distorted it in some way (Hinduism values all life to much, Buddhism is trying to escape life and it's suffering, Islam only values the life of some, etc.)
The fact is that unless you have a better reason than "this life is not a threat to society" it will eventually lead to this sort of thing again.
Lasting change will only be found in the true source of life.
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