On Sat, 15 Jul 2017 17:30:33 +0100, trader_4 wrote:

On Saturday, July 15, 2017 at 8:52:21 AM UTC-4, Walt wrote:
On 07/15/2017 06:55 AM, trader_4 wrote:
So, only parents can decide what treatment to allow or withhold?
Parents can choose to allow a baby to die, instead of be treated
for an easily curable disease? Or in this case, perform an experiment
on a suffering, terminal child, that no one says will lead to a recovery,
to any quality life, at most the child will be a vegetable.


We were evolving over the last bazillion years but we have recently
stopped. Every time we save a defective fetus we are putting evolution
in reverse.

There should be *no* heroic measures to save a fetus. Unfortunately the
world does not see long term.

First, in the case here, it's not a fetus, it's an infant.
IT depends on what the outcome of those heroic measures could be expected
to be. If it takes flying an infant to the US for heart surgery that
can only be performed here, that while risky, offers the infant a good
quality of life, etc, then I'm all for it. In this case, no one is
saying that the experimental procedure will give the infant any quality
of life. An infant with a less severe form of the disease and where
the brain deterioration had not progressed any where near as far,
who got similar treatment, is now 4 years old, on a ventilator,
fed via tube, able to move it's hands and feet. A heroic effort to
get to that, I agree is beyond stupid, it's cruel.

Depends what the outcome is. I haven't read enough to know what it is in this case. I agree with you that if you can't give the baby a decent life, it's best to kill it. If there's a 10% chance of giving it a good life and a 90% chance of it dying, then you might aswell try.

--
A man knocked on my door and asked for a small donation towards the local swimming pool, so I gave him a glass of water.