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Thursday March 16, 2006
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UK Toddler’s Quality of Life Judged Sufficient to Allow Continued Life Support
However judgement is short of victory from pro-life point of view
by Hilary White
LONDON, March 16, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A British judge has ruled that a disabled child will be allowed to live, saying that his enjoyment of life is sufficient to warrant continuing his life support.
The 19-month-old boy, called “Baby MB” by the press, has a genetic condition – spinal muscular atrophy – which leads to almost total paralysis. He cannot move, swallow or breathe on his own. His parents have been fighting in the courts with the hospital trust who want to turn off his respirator.
The judge, however, did not base his judgement on the child’s inherent right to life or on the parents’ right to make decisions for their son’s care. He said only that, in his opinion, Baby MB enjoyed life sufficiently to be allowed to have it continue.
Mr Justice Holman said that doctors may refuse to give him drugs or defibrillator treatment to restart his heart or treat him with antibiotics should he develop serious infections.
The parents were fighting in London’s High Court to stop the hospital from shutting of their son’s ventilator. The doctors who care for the child testified that the ventilator is “uncomfortable” and that the child therefore had an “intolerable life.”
The judge ruled that because he could probably see, hear and feel - taking pleasure from the eight or nine hours his family spends with him each day, Baby MB’s life could be judged worthwhile.
Justice Holman said, “It must be assumed that he processes all of those sights and sounds like any child of his age and gains pleasure from them.”
He added, “No court has yet been asked to approve, against the will of parents, the withdrawal of life support with the inevitable and immediate death of a conscious child with sensory awareness and cognition, and no significant evidence of brain damage.”
The judgement, however much it is welcomed by the parents, is short of a victory from the pro-life point of view. The parents’ solicitor said, “In the judgement, the court has agreed with the assessment of Baby MB's quality of life by those people who know him best.”
The ruling continues the legal slide toward a subjective view of the value of human life not based on a concrete notion of the right of every human being to live. Anti-euthanasia activists have deplored the shift in medical ethics towards a “quality of life” criterion.
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