Terminating disabled babies who probably won't survive and will be disabled

This is based on that recent case that happened in Texas.

There is a newborn baby who is diagnosed with a congenital genetic syndrome.

Doctors believe this baby will only have an 11% chance of living longer than one year,
a 9% chance of living to age 9, and a 7% chance of living to the age of 15.

Even if the child does survive, it will probably end up being mentally disabled.

But there's a 0.4% chance the child might end up having normal intelligence, and another 1% chance the child might just end up having rather low intelligence, equivalent to the dumbest 5 or 6% of the normal population.

Now, the question is, is it okay to just euthanize this baby, before it grows any further?
Hold a pillow over the baby's face until it suffocates, or maybe inject it with something to kill it?

And if it's not okay to do on a newborn baby, why would it be okay to do the same thing in the womb, when child has reached 20 weeks development, for example?


(This is based on the news story "Texas Supreme Court temporarily blocks pregnant woman from emergency abortion", CNN, by Ashley Killough, December 9, 2023.
All these statistics are accurate for a child diagnosed with the syndrome Trisomy 18.)


So let's suppose this is a newborn baby. Are you okay euthanizing it?

The following is a list of possible answers:

• Yes
• No
• Since it is such a complicated decision and I'm not sure, I think the mother should choose.
• Consent from both the mother and biological father should be required if they want to terminate it.
• Yes, unless a family volunteers to adopt it and provide care, then it's not okay.

I do have to point out that euthanizing disabled babies does seem just a little bit reminiscent of the Nazis.
But it's a "tough world" we live in, isn't it?

 

It's definitely not an easy situation. Would have been better to resolve it prior to 20 weeks, but 20 weeks is still the point where consciousness is probably not quite possible, so if the woman wants it, she should have that abortion today.

Even if we assume a conscious fetus, the situation is still not the same as a newborn, because being a part of somebody else's body makes it a bodily autonomy issue - but at least it would be a more serious ethical issue since we are talking about two actual people instead of a woman vs mindless tissue. If it were a newborn, then we are at the situation where they have rights and feelings like any being. Such a being should be treated as a person, but efforts should be made to prevent more such beings from coming into existence, such as encouragement of NIPT testing at 10 weeks routinely. NIPT Test (Noninvasive Prenatal Testing): What To Expect (clevelandclinic.org)

 

That's very debatable.
From all the research I've done, it seems like it's definitely "a baby" at 20 weeks, but who knows how consciousness works.
Might not even be "conscious" after the point where it can survive outside the womb (with the help of oxygen and an incubator).
I know you don't believe moving around, kicking and thumb-sucking prove "consciousness".

If it was known and could be proved that a fetus at 20 weeks did have a similar type of brain capacity as a newborn baby, would that change your opinion at all?

So you believe she should still be able to get an abortion at 20 weeks even if there's nothing medically wrong with her or the baby.

You can see the picture in this article of a baby (or "fetus"?) delivered at 20 weeks (extremely premature) which did not survive.
More information about development at 20 weeks in this short video.


caption reads: "By 20 weeks, fetal ultrasounds show all kinds of hand movements, including thumbsucking."
Confessions of prenatal ultrasound techs : Inside Children's Blog (akronchildrens.org)

 

It's all about whether there's a mental existence to me. Cute/sad pictures and reflexes don't prove anything. The distinction I would draw is that before consciousness, the fetus has no inherent moral relevance at all and it is completely up to the mother whether the pregnancy continue or not. I would be okay with restrictions once there is a mental existence - then it's weighing the rights of two persons against each other. Based upon what we know about consciousness, the structures are not yet connected enough by 20 weeks. I know there was at least one article disputing this in the past few years, but it was very unconvincing.

 

I think we're getting into another separate discussion issue of where precisely does human value come from and what exactly constitutes "consciousness".

Some related threads:
"The brain hasn't turned on yet, so it's okay to kill"
LIFE: it begins in the womb (page 7)
A woman has an obligation to give birth (page 9)
What are your views on abortion? (page 92, post #2284)

 

Why do you think this is a new situation? This happens every single day. EVERY SINGlE DAY! What happens is palliative care.

But even so Euthanasia means “gentle death” so let’s compare and contrast it to the “life” nd death of “Baby K” Stephanie Keene
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_K
In fact we have been down this road before as I started a thread on this some 5 years ago

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/case-of-baby-k.536667/

This poor wee thing never gained consciousness as there was no brain capable of generating anything but the most basic bodily functions.

 

Oh! And BTW the Texas case was a chromosomal anomaly NOT a “genetic” one. Please get basic facts correct

 

As many of your ilk, you ignore the woman, who plans to become pregnant again and she is risking future pregnancies by continuing this one. She has a say in all this.

 

I'm willing to buy that, with that caveat that I am concerned you might be overgeneralizing, making an appeal to extremes.

I think there are a range, a spectrum, of circumstances, some of which most everyone could agree that the woman should be allowed an abortion, and others of which most everyone could agree do not justify abortion.
These involve various degrees of risk to the mother and all different things that could be wrong with the fetus, with lowered chance of the baby being able to survive, various levels of disability if the baby does survive, or even various not totally certain probabilities that the baby might end up having a disability.
And then of course there's plenty of grey zone, a spectrum of situations that are debatable, or even which most people might not be too sure about.

Then combine all these with various stages of development that the fetus might be in at the time, in the ambiguous area somewhere between "being a baby" and "not existing yet".

Yet 20 weeks is very close to being a full-on baby in my opinion.

Bowerbird, you bring up "Baby K", but doesn't that kind of prove my point in the opening post?
One of the main arguments for abortion in that case was that the baby had retarded brain development. With that being so, wouldn't euthanasia outside the womb have been similar to termination inside the womb?

 

I don't want to get into semantics with you, but under some definitions chromosomal abnormalities could be considered a "genetic disorder".

This makes no difference to the abortion argument, obviously.

 

each woman makes here own choice, your choice may be different from anothers - this being pro-choice

 

And that is understandable in some or many of these cases.

But I think in some other cases, you'd really have to have to have a radical Libertarian mentality to take that view.

Just because a choice is difficult, doesn't necessarily automatically always mean it should be the mother's choice. We could compare this to other medical decisions that might affect a child, where there is a difficult dilemma.

 

And you didn't with the your OP?

 

before a fetus is born is not the same as an actual child that has been born

 

A neonate and a fetus are both children.

 

Are wiling to give the family the money (and we are talking MILLIONS) in medical and hospital bills in a case like this. Since you think YOU ought to have the right to make her decisions, then YOU have to accept the consequences ... right?

No?


Then don't stick your nose in other people's business.

 

I think you have a point. If the medical bills are not unreasonable, like not too much more than a normal pregnancy in a hospital.

But what if there is someone else willing to pay the medical bills? Either the government, or another family willing to pay the medical bills on the condition that they be allowed to adopt the baby? (Which is actually not uncommon at all)

 

No, the baby did not have “retarded brain development” it had no brain above the hindbrain. It would never ever develop a brain or thought or anything beyond basic pain/noxious stimuli reaction and THAT is because a lot of those reactions are spinal not cerebral.

And yes, you can run these through an ethics panel on one condition. Everyone on that panel has experience with caring for hopeless cases like “baby K”

 

Well first of all, I would point out to you that's not always true, in these cases.
see: The Boy With No Brain

Second of all, what you are describing is not the same thing in the opening post of this thread.
I fear you are making an argument from extremes.

 

The late decision date `came from the requirement for an appeal through the TX legal system.

It didn't come from some sort of indecision on the part of the doctors or the woman.

And, the report above didn't list any of the threats to the pregnant woman - as if they don't count.

 

And this is EXACTLY why I keep repeating



Now unless you can link me to a medical journal discussions this case I am going to remain sceptical with a caveat. The child had severe hydrocephalus - severe. https://www.childrenshospital.org/conditions/hydrocephalus But that meant his “grey matter” was intact. It was the white matter that was compressed and as can happen with slow evolution of brain injury the tissues (cells) themselves were dehydrated plus the infant skull is expandable.


Looking at the CT there was a “shell” of grey matter around the fluid and I would suggest waaay more than 2% (Yes I can read CTs)

it is possible for children to regrow the white matter that is the axons or connections between the cells and they comprise of the bulk of the brain IF a there is the underlying structure to “grow” from and not diffuse damage



With an anencephalic there is no grey matter. That part of the brain is missing

 

I do not think that is true. That is not the impression I get from reading any of the news articles about this story.
Can you link me to any article showing us otherwise?

The only articles I've been able to find just say that she is 20 weeks pregnant, a lower court initially approved the abortion but then the state Supreme Court issued an order to temporarily block it. Probably an emergency order, I'm guessing.

Here's an excerpt from the article from Reuters:

"Without regard to the merits, the Court administratively stays the district court's December 7, 2023 order," the late Friday ruling said.​

The article itself is dated December 11. That's only 4 days later, after the lower court initially approved the abortion.

 

Threats to the pregnant woman certainly count. But something I would like to point out here is that no woman would get an abortion for those health reasons if the baby/fetus was normal.
(Not unless she already would have wanted to abort anyway)

 

I started off with an example of a child that will be likely to have severe mental disability.
You switched the argument to the case of a child with extremely severe hydrocephalus in which very little brain matter exists.

Tell us Bowerbird, since your argument seems to be that it's okay to abort because the unborn baby has less than 2% of a brain, why wouldn't it also be okay to euthanize that baby right after it comes out?

 

You didn't count the time required to mount a case in a lower court.