Allowing deformed babies to die from dehydration, why?

This is going to be a short Op because I have no proof to offer. This is all speculation on my part, but this must be discussed. Especially with all the genetic engineering and organ donation situations, I feel this deserves a meeting of the minds.

I just finished reading this very sad article about how parents who give birth to babies with congenital birth defects are told by their doctors that their babies will most likely not survive. The parents are then pursuaded to sign paperwork for an End of Life Plan, or a Death Pathway. As soon as the parents sign, the doctors stop feeding and giving the baby water. The child dehydrates and death takes hold after an agonizing ten days (typically).
Here is the article:
www.dailymail.co.uk... j73D

Now, here is where my conspiratorial mind kicked in. Why allow this painful death when the doctors could simply inject an overdose of barbituates as we do when we have to put our beloved pets down?
My theory is that the barbituates would damage/contaminate the tissues/cells and render them useless when they that could be saved and provided to other patients or used for genetic experiments. Starving and dehydrating the cells would still preserve them for use later.

Plus, since it takes the child approximately ten days to succumb, this is more than enough time for the doctors to find a suitable donor or sell the tissues to a lab.

There's lots of money in organ donations and genetic experimentation. Are we seeing this here?
Are doctors causing suffering because they are thinking of the money they're going to receive when it would be much more humane to give the poor baby an injection of powerful drugs so they could simply fall asleep peacefully?

Thanks for reading.

reply to post by Afterthought


I don't know how much of this is really true or how much is sadistic hype. But it's an ugly look at something that is so difficult for families going through this horror.

Anyway, I read and commented on this topic this morning, too, on this ATS thread here: www.abovetopsecret.com...

It is because doctors take an oath to "first do no harm." Obviously euthanizing an infant would be causing it harm. For this same reason doctors do not euthanize death-row inmates.

In birth defects like anencephaly, the child is born without a brain or with an extremely malformed one. They cannot feel pain. There is no cure and the prognosis is almost always death. So starving/dehydrating an infant in this case is actually the most humane option, if that makes any sense. The same thing is done with brain dead and terminal cancer patients.

They did that to my mother.

They do this to many elderly people with cancers and terminal diseases.
This is their unofficial "death panels" they say don't exist.

"They" make a decision in an office, then your relative is left to themselves to die from dehydration and/or hunger. This is what they do to many human beings. I can't confirm if this is the practice for deformed babies, but IT IS the practice done for many years now on the elderly and/or terminally ill.

Is this a humane way of ending the life of someone with a severe illness/deformity?
In my opinion, they murdered my mother.

The end results have made me who I am today. Angry and bitter at the system, and a huge pain in the ass to them when it comes to human rights and dignity.

.

sadly this is true,my sister worked in Boston hospital on maternity ward awhile back before we had real neonatal care,a baby was borned with the afflction of what we called wolf children sydrome,at the time not much was know about the affliction,so she said that they put the baby in a corner did not feed it and let it strave to death,other stories but don't want to go into details

reply to post by Erowynn



Not according to recent data or parents/family experience. There are varying degrees of development in neural tube defects like anencephaly. They do respond to touch and etc. Like MANY things that we are told that infants/adults cant sense.. they can and medicine/science does not know for sure. In the last 12 months we have made HUGE leaps in studies and facts are no longer facts concerning long term coma patients. They too can many times hear and feel pain.

Youd have to have an acct to review the info I read recently, but anencephaly.org has a quick FAQ that was recently changed :

Can an anencephalic child sense or do anything? Doctors will tell you that an anencephalic child can neither see nor hear, nor feel pain, that he or she is a vegetable. However, that does not match up with the experience of many families who have had an anencephalic child. The brain is affected to varying degrees, according to the child; the brain tissue can reach different stages of development. Some children are able to swallow, eat, cry, hear, feel vibrations (loud sounds), react to touch and even to light. But most of all, they respond to our love: you don’t need a complete brain to give and receive love- all you need is a heart!

www.anencephalie-info.org...

Theyll also tell you anencephalics only survive hrs.. many survive YEARS. The fact is.. they simply do not know. These kinds of things proposed in the OP are a slippery slope and some will swallow anything a Dr or study tells them hook line and sinker.

reply to post by windword


Thanks for commenting and linking to the original thread. I was lurking on ATS quite a bit this morning and through the day, but I failed to see that thread.

It's scary that this type of suffering is allowed to happen.

reply to post by Erowynn

It is because doctors take an oath to "first do no harm." Obviously euthanizing an infant would be causing it harm.

Maybe that oath needs to be reworded to state "cause no undue suffering".

I just had to put my dog to sleep recently. It was very difficult to do, but there is no way I could've allowed him to starve and dehydrate until he passed. Just plain cruel.

reply to post by JibbyJedi
I know that you will not understand this,but i worked in a nursing home,this is not that they have a panel and they decide this on their own to stop treatment for your mother,the decision is made by doctors and a family member,they cannot just decide to refuse your mother food and water, it is called neglect,but with a family member gives their ok that is the only time the nursing home hospital can do this It is the quality of life that they have when they are in bad shape,to see one suffering day in and day out and no way to get better is very hard,i have watched this many times,it is hard on the family to watch this to,but after the family member passes away they feel a sense of relieve knowing their loved never has to feel pain and hurt anymore

To those who posted stating that they had to watch babies and their loved ones die in this manner, my deepest condolences.

Please forgive my next questions.
Did the doctors inquire about organ donation?
Were the bodies cremated?

To the nurse who commented, were the babies cremated or given to the parent(s) for burial?

I haven't checked out the other thread yet, but this thread is mainly about what happens to the body after death. Does anyone know how barbituates affect the organs and tissues?
Can tissues and cells still able to be used for donation or biological experiments if they have been exposed to barbituates?

All of this seems very suspicious to me and I'd like this thread to focus on the biology of the tissues and how they are benefitting the medical and science community to allow anything to die in this manner.

Sure, doctors have their Hypocratic Oaths, but this is a fine line when there are ways to end suffering. I'm sure there are many other birth defects besides the ones where the babies aren't born with brains and cannot feel pain. I'm sure many infants that have been put on Death Paths could feel pain.

I agree with you, this is incredibly heartless and they have no right to dehydrate or starve a child to death no matter what their handicap or deformity. It is murder and against the law, covered by all consitutions, so not sure how, where, and when some politiican managed to write an unlawful bill that let this sneak in the backdoor, because even if a trail is found to such legislation IT's MASSIVELY ILLEGAL AND ALL INVOLVED SHOULD BE IN JAIL FOR LIFE. Not just murder an infant, but TORTURE AND MURDER. So EXTREME PRE-MEDITATED AND PSYCHOPATHIC MURDER.

If the child's condition is life threatening then they will pass away with love, food and attention.

sorry some miss spelled words in there love ones i meant,and we do not just leave them their all alone,we as aides also feel that the elderly ones are family,we go check on them hold their hands and talk to them and yes we tell them to go ahead and let go,cause we see the pain and agony not being able to move,communicate and yes they tell us they are ready to go

This is just so horrible I can't put it into words. It's bad enough when it's the elderly but a baby. It's a sad sad thing to hear about.


Strict

It's terrible that the elderly can't be given injections and are forced to die this way. This is the 21st century after all and we should be able to put this in our living wills. But, for the sake of this thread and it's subject matter, let's stay focused on the babies for this thread.

There's a lot of money in organ donation, biological engineering, and medical experimentations.

Since scientists and doctors are trying to identify the genetic and DNA sequences of these diseases and birth defects, it's scary to think that these dehydrated little bodies that haven't been exposed to any environmental contaminents may be used to unlock certain mysteries so humans won't be born with these defects ever again. I bet it's like gold to scientists to be able to get ahold of young tissue that hasn't been tainted at all so it can be used to further medical and scientific agendas.

If they are doing this, it's a violation and the parents should be made aware or given the choice to decide if they want their baby's body used for science.

Like I stated in the Op, I'm just speculating here, but there is a lot of money to be had here and this situation seems very strange to me.

The baby was not wanted by the parents,as i said not alot was know about the condition back in my sister's time,i can't spell it right so it is when a baby is born with hair all over it's body,also some others who were so severely deformed back then neonatal care was still not what it is today,and yes the medical field in reconstruction surgey is geowing by leaps and bounds,back then not so,so when a baby was born with it's brain just lying in a sack with no skull ,and no quality of life what so ever that was their choice

reply to post by Afterthought


This is part of post from the other thread:

When my father suffered a massive stroke, my mother called the paramedics, who applied emergency measures and rushed him to ER, where he was put on life support and moved to ICU.

Within a few hours, doctors notified us that he had registered a legal "Do Not Resuscitate" order with the hospital. We were given some private time with him, before they took him off life support and moved him to "Hospice."

It took 5 days for him to die, but they did comfort him with a morphine drip and fluids, no nutrition though.

My father was an organ donor. After the coroner, or whoever harvested what they needed from him, he was cremated.

My mother was also left to die in the ER because of her "DNR", after she choked on a pill. It took seven hours for her to gasp her last gasp. It was very painful to watch, but I didn't want to leave her alone either.

She was also an organ donor, and her body was cremated.

reply to post by jasmine23


Do you believe there is a chance the doctors donated that baby's body to science so they could possibly isolate that gene so they could detect it in the womb, then eliminated or give the parent(s) the option of abortion?

Please let's not get into the morality of this. It is the parents' choice and I'm not here to judge them. Don't you think that if they were given the choice of a barb overdose or starving their child, they'd have chosen the overdose?

reply to post by windword


I'm so sorry they and you had to experience that. I couldn't imagine how difficult it was for each of you.
Thank you for answering the questions I posed.

I just want people to know i am not a heartless person,and yes i agree family members should have the right to opt for a painless injection be it babies are the elderly to end life with the quality of life is no longer to their advantage to you understand the difference in quality and quantity of life,that is what doctors, nursing homes go by

reply to post by Afterthought


I am not sure the baby was turn over to science i,would hope it was because the condition was so rare,the parents did not want anything to do with the baby,it was their choice to let the baby die,they did not want to even see it