Devoir de Philosophie

THE HARDEST CHOICE

Publié le 07/02/2012

Extrait du document

 

In Baltimore three years ago, the parents of a newborn Mongoloid baby refused to allow an operation to correct a fatal defect in the infant's digestive tract. Despite pressure from doctors and hospital personnel, they refused to change their minds, and the child slowly starved to death.

In Portland, Maine, last month, when parents made a similar decision about their severely deformed infant, hospital officiais asked a court to decide. A judge, holding that the baby bad a right to live, issued an order that allowed doctors to operate on the child. Despite the surgery, the infant died 15 days after birth.

« often only telling the parents tbat their babies were stillbom.

But public discussion of this unpleasant alternative is a relati­ vely new phenomenon.

Doctors and hospital officiais across the U.S.

are now openly acknowledging tbat there are cases in which ali concemed agree that the best-and perbaps even the most humane-treatment for a severely deformed infant is none at ali .•.

...

As a result, the painful decision to treat or not to treat a deformed infant rests squarely on the shoulders of the parents and their physicians.

To help parents make their decision, doctors in major hospitals now meet with parents of a deformed baby as soon as possible after delivery, explain the nature of the child's problems, and outline the steps that must be taken if life is to be preserved.

They also try to provide an honest evaluation of the kind of life their efforts may succeed in pre­ serving.

Despite the shock and disappointment of ba ving a deformed child, most parents automatically opt for life and urge doctors to do wbatever they cao to maintain it.

This may change with the more open debate on whether allowing a baby to die is preferable to dooming it to an inhumanely bandicapped existence.

TIME, March 25, 1974.

1.

Commentaire dirigé 1) Should doctors automatically let severely deformed babies die at birth? Why do they disagree about it? 2) Do you think on the contrary that the parents must be informed and make the decision themselves? 3) Do you agree with people who think that life must be pre­ served in ail cases ? 4) What is more important for you: "life" or "the quality of life"? 5) Can 't euthanasia in general be sometimes considered as "a crime of love"? 2.

Version Traduire depuis : "As a result..." jusqu'à " ...

handicapped existence".. »

↓↓↓ APERÇU DU DOCUMENT ↓↓↓

Liens utiles