More ethical problems

[Xantar]

Note to mods: please award doubloons for thoughtful replies to this thread.

We here in the Black Project Forum are by definition veteran forum members and hopefully more intelligent than the average bunch of internet people. So, here's an opportunity to earn your keep. With your replies to this thread, you can earn part of your payment for another month of access to this forum. I'm going to try to create issues like this every once in a while for you to discuss.

Here's a hypothetical situation that also occurs in real life: you are on the ethics committee for a hospital. That means your job is to determine what doctors should do for their patients based on what is ethical. Most people on ethics committees at hospitals are doctors and nurses, but that's not necessary. All you need is inteligence and a sense of morality.

A baby is born three months premature in your hospital. It has a strange growth on its back, and its legs are turning blue from lack of oxygen. The doctors realize that this baby has spina bifida. To put it simply, spina bifida is a split in the spine that means that below a certain point on the spine, messages from the brain won't be carried. The spina bifida on this baby is placed in such a way that it has some upper body movement and its vital organs work properly. However, it has no leg function or bladder function. So it won't be able to walk, and when it eats, somebody will actively have to drain its bladder because it can't urinate.

There's more. The nature of this particular spina bifida means that the baby is severely mentally retarded. It has no higher thinking. Not only is it unable to walk, it is unable to conceive of the idea of walking. Its senses are so impaired that it barely meets the definition of "conscious." It will go through life simply lying in place, not thinking or perceiving the world.

You have two choices. You can direct doctors to treat the baby aggressively. It just might improve to the point where it can perceive the world in a limited way and perhaps even talk. That has happened in cases like this before. Also, the case is medically very easy to treat. It won't cost a lot of money, and there is relatively little surgery aside from the initial operation to drain fluid from its spine.

Or you can take the conservative approach which is to make it comfortable. It will most likely die in a few weeks if you do this.

Keep in mind that the baby is not suffering. Your hospital is capable of letting a patient die, but the guidelines are that you can only do that if the patient is a hopeless case and is suffering to the extent that it is better to let him or her pass away. This baby is not a hopeless case. He is capable of breathing and eating although not urinating. Moreover, as I said before he is not suffering.

But what kind of life are you granting him? The chances of improvement are almost nonexistent despite the fact that it sometimes happens. What is thousands of times more likely is that he will be vegetative. Is that a life worth living? Moreover, what about his parents? They love him and will do whatever is best for him. If you decide that what's best for him is to keep him alive, they will abide by that. If you decide that what's best for him is to let nature take its course, the parents will abide by that, too.

But can you in good conscience perform allow the initial operation to take place whereupon the baby is placed as a burden on the parents to take care of for the rest of his life?

On the other hand, is letting him die tantamount to killing him?

You work at a hospital. Some would say that your job is to preserve life. Others would say that your job is to provide care. Which is it?