Infant Euthanasia ???
StillHere
Posts: 7,795
http://bigthink.com/ideas/21676
this is the topic on Big Think today.
I'm having a hard time swallowing the idea...a very hard time
what are your thoughts?
this is the topic on Big Think today.
I'm having a hard time swallowing the idea...a very hard time
what are your thoughts?
peace,
jo
http://www.Etsy.com/Shop/SimpleEarthCreations
"How I choose to feel is how I am." ~ EV/MMc
"Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends." ~ One Stab ~
jo
http://www.Etsy.com/Shop/SimpleEarthCreations
"How I choose to feel is how I am." ~ EV/MMc
"Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends." ~ One Stab ~
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more like, best interest of the parents who do not want to care for a child with such heavy needs.
there are so many people in the world who overcome and/or live with (for lack of better words) fucked up ass health problems...and so many of these people, amazingly, are just happy to be alive and enjoy every moment...in more ways than a healthy person does sometimes (which is just amazing to me)
granted....thinking that, "how could someone actually have a happy life with a problem like this" some people can...and for that, its a personal choice.
now, if the kid hits 18 and says, fuck this...life sux and im not doing it anymore..then its their choice...until then i don't think it should be the parents choice.
It's not something I can even get around in my head, though if one can accept 'assisted suicide' in the case of a terminally ill adult (or one deemed with no quality of life), one may have to start considering this for a child. Of course, an adult can make his/her own decision and a child can't. But as a parent, do I see my baby suffer immensely, knowing he/she will die in the very near future and his/her few days/week/months on earth will only be great pain with no relief or do I 'end the suffering'? Would the parents do it for themselves or for the baby? Though the article focuses obviously on babies who have absolutely no hope of surviving and living the little time they have in comfort, one needs to think how far this could go? Does one euthanize a severely disabled baby, though the disability will not cause physical pain?
i totally support assisted suicide in adults in cases where significant suffering is occuring ... i would support this wholeheartedly if it appeared the infant was in extreme agony ...
Many Canadians will remember this story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Latimer
But the pain it must cause, as a parent.... You must be ripped apart - one side thinking you need to stop your baby suffering, the other thinking you are giving the OK to kill your baby....
i'm not saying it is easy ... but for the same reasons i put my dog to sleep - i would do for my child ... i would make that choice for anyone i loved ... in these cases - you are their only hope ... you have to act in their best interests not yourself ...
I understand the other side, I just would never do it...Man I just want to go home and hug my little girl right now, very interesting topic TS
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
with all due respect ... i would classify your decision making as in your own self-interest ...
how can we be sure that the infant is in terrible pain and suffering....he/she cannot communicate that
how can we be sure a cure or whatever treatment is being administered will not help
how can we not look to more specialized hospitals or more enlightened physicians
maybe its selfish..yes, but i cannot see myself EVER EVER EVER euthanizing my infant/child. most definitively not.
In my nursing career, I "may" have participated in "slow codes", when an elderly person has a do not resuscitate order...they are perfectly aware of that situation, they are prepared, to whatever point that is possible, and they want to pass away when their time comes. A slow code is not euthanasia, or lack of palliative or emergency care....it is a decision made by a sane person and their family and caregivers....and the person is simply allowed to pass away with dignity and self respect. Since the legal ramifications could be a huge problem for the hospital or LTC facility, slow codes are performed all the time...and a person is simply "not found in time" to perform a resuscitation. Its reality, yes.
However, an infant, a young child, does not have the option of making that decision. We have no idea what this child would want. We have no idea if he suffering we suppose the child is going through is actually experienced in the same way as an adult would perceive it. Pain is, in a lot of ways, a learned response. Yes, pain is autonomic, reflexive, but it is also definitely a learned response ...a response that much exacerbates the pain we would have felt had we not learned that "its supposed to hurt this bad". When we think something is supposed to hurt, it will hurt much worse. Young children have not learned this response yet. This is one reason why you'll hear it said so often that "children bounce back so quickly"..they haven't learned not to. Surgical post op times are greatly reduced in children...weaning off pain meds is quicker for young children. Recovery of range of motion is much quicker for children. If you have no children to observe this phenomenon in, consider your pet who has been spayed/neutered..gone through major surgery , comes home and leaps around the house like nothing ever happened. They don't know its supposed to hurt. Kids don't either. I'm not saying kids are like animals so don't jump down my throat...I'm saying they have the same innocence when it comes to learned responses.
Consider your children if they've broken a bone, yes it hurts, and when the cast gets put on, they are given some tylenol, and voiila, out to play once again in a day or two...but we adults have "learned" that this broken bone is supposed to hurt more, and so it does. Don't think so? Think about it a little bit.
A personal example, my grandson,when he was approx 18 months, 6 months or so ago,had his hand slammed in a door jamb. He lost the tip of his pinky finger (which has since remarkably regenerated for the most part) and yes, he cried, but he cried a LOT more when his parents freaked out over it...and he hurt, yes, but he hurt a LOT more if he noticed the bandages or if someone fussed over the injury. Otherwise, he played and used the hand pretty much as normal most of the time, a day or two after the injury. If that had been an adult, OMG the pain would never cease to torment us. Its a fact.
Anyway the point is, with an infant, we can't know their suffering or lack of it. We can't decide what's best for them. We can't know what's best for them. We can't know what's coming just around the corner. Allowing a child on life support to pass away is one thing...allowing or deciding, that an otherwise living breathing child should die..is quite another.
I just can't wrap my head around it. No..no way.
When an adult makes the decision to end their life via assisted suicide, its a thought out, hopefully rational decision.
Euthanasia by another person, OF a person, young or old, who cannot participate in that decision is not a decision that i think i could make.
Opting not to have heroic measures taken, that I can understand.
If a child i so sick that she is in pain or suffers so much, there are palliative measures that can be taken.
I once was OK with abortion..now I'm not (at least not for myself...others make their own choices)...life changes things.
It's not as black and white as it seems....
think..
could you do this with your child, right now? If the circumstances were seemingly irreversible for your child, could you do it?
No....i don't think that I could.
Then again I have the same difficulty with the death penalty....what gives any one (or 3) person the right to put another person to death? Why is it permissible to kill a person because they have killed someone else. Isn't that making the same criminal out of the person flipping the switch? It just is not rational thought. None of that makes sense to me. But that's another discussion entirely. So, don't get started on that. Sorry but I thought I should mention my views.
jo
http://www.Etsy.com/Shop/SimpleEarthCreations
"How I choose to feel is how I am." ~ EV/MMc
"Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends." ~ One Stab ~
Pain in babies is researched and documented, the 'professionals' know the physical/biological/chemical process happening in the body when pain/suffering is there (documented by brain scans, blood tests, etc.). It would also seem that newborns feel acute pain as the connections in their brains that would otherwise dull the sensation in an older child are not yet developed. 'We' also know that babies and children do not experience pain the same way adults do as they do not have the cognitive skills to 'dwell' on it and explain it. Yes pain is 'learned' as you mention but the baby that has suffered one type of pain will 'recognize' it the next time and eventually make the connections (sorry - layman's terms - there are medical ways of expressing these thoughts!). We KNOW babies suffer and experience pain.
When you say we can't know what's just around the corner, the babies they are talking about in this article have a very definite path - no hope. Nothing in sight. Just pain and suffering for their very short lives. As a parent, it is our DUTY to know/find out what is best for them and to make these decisions until they are capable otherwise. Whether we are capable of making these decisions is another matter.
I know children born with spinabifida as mentioned in the article, who were considered at one point to have no chance, no hope....and are now functioning, life-loving adults. what if someone had decided that their life wasn't worth living when the doctors all said there was no hope/ what then?
I just don't agree.
I don't think it can ever be said with 100% surety that a child WILL DIE, or WILL SUFFER interminably. I've seen too many examples to negate those statements.
Disagree of course, if you like.
That's what we're doing, debating, expressing opinions.
That's mine.
for what its worth.
jo
http://www.Etsy.com/Shop/SimpleEarthCreations
"How I choose to feel is how I am." ~ EV/MMc
"Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends." ~ One Stab ~
but what are the proportions of children that do make it vs. those that do not and suffer a slow agonizing death?
I disagree, you cannot read the mind of a infant. If you could you would make billions, you don't know what they want, they may want to live as long as possible, they may want to die. It isn't my self interest that they live, without knowing what they want, how can you know you are acting in way they want? if you decide to put them down, aren't you really doing it for yourself? it would be much easier to not allow them to live the life than have to see it every day. Again, I can see the motivation for people, it just isn't something I can get behind
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
can''t honestly say i know that...would take some research
and i don't feel like doing that type of super depressing research today, man
jo
http://www.Etsy.com/Shop/SimpleEarthCreations
"How I choose to feel is how I am." ~ EV/MMc
"Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends." ~ One Stab ~
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
we can't read horse's or dog's minds either yet - we do it for humanitarian reasons every day ...
i believe medically and scientifically speaking we can determine when an infant is suffering in agony ... again - if a child has been properly diagnosed with a condition that causes severe amounts of pain and the kid is full out bawling ... you can be pretty sure he/she is suffering ... if you burn an infant - they are gonna cry ... you don't need to read their minds to know that ... it boils down to this:
is their a mechanism for pain?
does child exhibit behaviour associated with pain?
I don't know about that...while we do not have the ability to contemplate complex thoughts on death and life, we are born with instincts. those instincts cause us to pull our hand away from something that hurts, and latch on to a breast that is feeding us without ever having seen one before. No animal has the instinct to kill itself . . . some do but that is a whole other topic
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
Exactly... instincts. Very different thing to being able to contemplate life or death, understand the meaning of these.
I have reasoning to not do it, but it all boils down to how you think you are helping...if assisted suicide is legal, than this should be too, it just isnt something I would do...,
as far as the dog/horse comment, doesn't apply here. I just don't know how you can equate that with the life of a kid
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
Are you agreeing with my position or disagreeing? i cannot tell, are you telling me to understand the difference between instincts and our ability to contemplate life and death? Dont want to assume things but am hoping you just left out the word "or"
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
assisted suicide is on behalf of an ADULT who has consciously made an informed decision to end their life
big difference
as far as prognostication...i've spent decades in nursing...nothing, nothing, nothing..is for certain....for real
jo
http://www.Etsy.com/Shop/SimpleEarthCreations
"How I choose to feel is how I am." ~ EV/MMc
"Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends." ~ One Stab ~
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
you used the reasoning that you can't read a child's mind for not acting ... all i'm saying is we act without that ability in many other scenarios ...
at the end of the day - you are obviously entitled to your decisions - i'm just saying mine and why
right on, I can respect it, I certainly see both sides,
and props to everyone here, already the second page and no name calling...I kind of high-jacked this thing so I am out
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
Kudos to all!
jo
http://www.Etsy.com/Shop/SimpleEarthCreations
"How I choose to feel is how I am." ~ EV/MMc
"Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends." ~ One Stab ~