 wildcat says: This is an extremely important aspect of our new world, since technology now allows actions that were for all practical purposes impossible just a few yrs ago. the question is an ethical philosophical one, rushing to answer is not advised.. Years ago these children were allowed to let nature take its course(if they died, they died), now we can save many of these children, yet, many are left with life-long mental and/or physical impairments which lead to life-long major medical and educational expenses. I realize some parents/doctors want to save every child at all costs, but is that what is best for the child? For society? We also have the same problem at the other end of life, when an older person has all sorts of mental or physical problems, how much should be done to keep them alive? Just because we can, should we? What about after being a new born? Suppose someone gets a terrible disease or is in a bad accident and is permanently afflicted, who decides whether to treat them or "let them die"? As a retired teacher, I have a problem with saving newborns with problems, preemies, etc. Because I know someday they'll end up in a classroom somewhere, where someone, the parents or Americans with Disabilities laws, will want them to be mainstreamed. If school district taxpayers knew that those average spent per student figures that superintendents so glibly tossed around, if it was re- figured for amount spent on the "normal" student and another figure for the "special needs" student--if they think taxpayers vote down tax levies now, no school tax levy would ever pass. The amounts would be shocking, probably less than $2000 on the "normal" student and over $20,000 or more to educate a ... I used to work in health sciences research in a group studying premature babies. We had records for something like 35,000 babies in our dataset back when I worked there. Based on long-term outcomes for seriously premature babies, I think we should be doing much less in the way of heroic measures, and much more in the way of palliative and hospice care (and grief counseling for the parents). Just because it's possible to keep alive an infant born prematurely at 22 weeks gestational age doesn't mean it's a good idea. (Personal, judgmental opinion: if somebody doesn't know what ECMO and ROP stand for in this context, they don't know enough to argue in favor of heroic efforts.) I don't know what those letters are that Lexica mentioned in her comment, but, the way I feel about any medical procedure for anyone of any age is, just because they can do it doesn't mean they should. Amen to your comment tanyamm. |
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