The Moral Equivalent of Infanticide in the UK

Babies who survive abortion are left to die in the UK each year, according to reports. From the story:

Botched abortions mean that scores of babies are being born alive and left to die, an official report has revealed. A total of 66 infants survived NHS termination attempts in one year alone, it emerged. Rather than dying at birth as was intended, they were able to breathe unaided. About half were alive for an hour, while one survived ten hours.

It is important to remember that once these little boys and girls were born, which is what happened when they survived the attempted abortions, they were no longer fetuses but babies, and yet no medical care was offered:

The figures are the first to give a national picture of the number of babies who survive abortion but are left to die. Experts previously believed the phenomenon was limited to a handful of cases a year. The babies were aborted using a drug to soften the cervix and induce labour. Once born no medical help is offered.

This is an abomination. Refusing to treat these babies is outrageous medical neglect that crosses the line into infanticide.

The United States has the Born Alive Infants Protection Act and the Baby Doe regulations to protect against just for such circumstances. Will the UK at last say, "Enough?"

Medical Journal Exposes Bigotry of "Deliberate Termination of Life of Newborns with Spina Bifida"

In the Netherlands, doctors sometimes euthanize babies born with spina bifida. There (and here), doctors sometimes refuse to treat them so that they will die. But now, a new journal article calls expose these lethal actions and non actions as the bigotry (my term) that they are. Writing in Childs Nervous System (2008; 24:13-28), T. H. Rob de Jong A Dutch pediatric neurosurgeon writes:

There is no evidence that newborns with MMC and hydrocephalus do either 'suffer' unbearably or hopelessly and certainly not without the prospect to relieve this suffering by standard care. 'Suffering' itself is a nonconclusive,and in newborns, inapplicable denominator that should not be used anymore in this debate. Although they will in their future life be confronted with handicaps,sometimes very severe, their future prospects and their actual experienced quality of life cannot be predicted with such certainty at birth that their lives can be regarded as hopeless or meaningless ('quality of life judgments' as such being unacceptable in this decision making). Possible discomfort in these newborns can easily be treated in a straightforward way by active treatment (closure of the defect and shunting the hydrocephalus) and, when necessary,by the use of a professional pain/symptom protocol.

The decision not to treat such a newborn, when based on expected handicaps, possibly violates the 'non-discrimination' principle (Dorscheidt, 2006).When not being treated, they are not terminally ill because of the MMC and/or hydrocephalus per se; they are 'terminally ill' because of this nontreatment decision. Not being terminally ill, it is not 'humane' or 'merciful' to terminate their life, this also being not in accordance with international legislation and international medical
recommendations...

Such a child can and should be cared for in a respectful and dignified way, providing all its actual needs (which apparently is not death itself). This being the case, there is no indication whatsoever for the deliberate termination of the life of children born with MMC.

But that takes true compassion, which means to suffer with. Too often, in our utilitarian times, it is deemed better to just do away with the problem by doing a way with the patient--a false compassion.

But at last: A learned and ethical answer to the benighted drive in the Netherlands to permit infanticide against babies with spina bifida. Hooray.