This story does highlight many things: that small people in utero are nonetheless people, for starters. And yes, it’s been said a thousand times, but I might as well say it again (why not?)–this baby could easily have been aborted on another floor of the hospital even as extraordinary measures were taken to save her life here.
Thing is, I’m not in favour of the extraordinary measures… not because I think the possibility of disease or illness would make her “quality of life” less worth living, but because in this case, the doctors saving her life in this manner may mean they are playing God. I am personally against in vitro fertilization, for similar reasons. I’d like to be able to flesh out my discomfort with this more fully, so if you agree or disagree with the extraordinary measures taken to save this baby born at 24 weeks, I’m all ears.








I’m feeling mixed about this. I would certainly want to save the life – however, sounds like a natural termination would have happened and we cannot play God at that time. The fact that the parents couldn’t let go is the issue. It’s easier for me to sit here and think so but I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision for them. And then seeing this poor girl develop further health issues as she grows older is just as sad. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t supposed to be here? Just my thinking .. that’s all.
No one wants to be an armchair quarterback on something so deeply personal, it’s true. Thanks for your thoughts.
I have a fairly loose philosophy in life that you work with nature, rather than against it. When I was in university, I took a bioethics course at the Catholic college on campus, and we touched on the issue of extremely premature babies in class. The Sister who taught the course was both excited and wary at the same time that they were able to save younger and younger babies. Excited, because, saving lives is a god thing, but wary, because, well, sometimes it would almost be better if the child had died.
I came away from the class thinking that , if I were to have a premature baby, I would let the child die.
But as I get older, I realize that things aren’t nearly as black and white as they seemed when I was younger. (I say that as if I were a really old woman. I’m not, at least not yet.) Thing is, you start meeting some of these kids who were born prematurely…
A good friend of mine had a baby at 25 weeks. My niece was born at 28. Neither Mum was sure that they wanted the baby to live, but felt that you needed to at least give the kid a chance. Both girls are healthy 11-year-olds today. They’ve both got some battle scars (and by that, I mean physical scars from IV lines or intubations) but both are well within the normal range of where they should be, and have been since the time they were two or so.
But, oh! it was hard for their families while they were in the hospital. Really, really really hard. That kind of stress is the kind of stress that rips marriages apart and breaks up families. Of course, we are all glad that they endured, and we ended up with such great kids. But there were a few times when things were rough that the Mom’s were ready to give up, and they said “It would have been easier had she died at the outset.”
And I know this is really crass to say, but it is SO costly. You don’t begrudge the kids who turned out fine the shekels it cost to get them healthy, but when you spend that kind of money and the child suffers so and then dies anyway… It would be nice if there were a crystal ball that would tell you which child would turn out and which wouldn’t, but there isn’t. And so the doctors muddle through and do the best they can with what they have.
On the other hand…
When I was still at home (in rural Alberta) neighbours gave birth to a child who was either stillborn or died shortly after birth. When I talked to them later, they said that they were glad that they had given birth in a rural hospital, with not much in the way of neonatal care, because it meant that they didn’t have to choose whether or not to start extreme measures. The extreme measures simply weren’t there to choose.