Texas Hospital Will Kill Child Despite Parent's Wishes

i just figured the govt would be paying for it

 

I agree that the parents are being selfish, as shown by the mother's statement in the first article about cherishing her time with her baby. In this case, the right decision seems to be to pull the plug. Also, it is pretty clear that the hospital itself doesn't really have any financial interest in ending treatment, so the doctors' decision seems reasonable.

However, this law frightens me somewhat, as it seems to create a slippery slope when it seeks to define what degree of terminality (if that is a word) and suffering permits this course of action. What if a terminally ill adult was being treated in a hospital, was clearly suffering due to the treatment, but would prefer to live through the suffering? I don't know what this law says about that, but I don't see how any such law could account for all situations that really should be judged on a case-by-case basis.

 

if there is no consciousness, how can pain be felt??? higher brain order destroyed - that means the child is not even mentally there. It doesn't see, hear, smell, or think.

It's just a machine now.

 

Higher brain function usually refers to cerebral function. Of course, the peripheral nerves in the fingers or whatever will still generate signals and send them up the spine. In the brain stem and the hypothalamus, you could even still see hormonal norephenephrine and endorphin release and heart rate increase, etc. But conscious proprioception is exclusive to the cerebrum the parietal lobe. You could even get the physical symptoms of pain but with no cerebral function you would not have anything that you or I would identify as pain.

 

Sometimes we just need to let people die with dignity -- no matter how bad it makes us feel.

 

I wouldn't go so far as to say what you or I would identify as pain. The article says "Higher order brain functions are destroyed" is that all higher order brain functions, most or some? Consciousness and pain perception isn't that clearly understood and without knowing more about this case I wouldn't automatically assume from the info that the child can't feel pain.

Further even if the child has no consciousness it would likely still be emotionally wrenching to watch the child die writhing in agony even with the knowledge that there was no higher brain to remember or interpret it. From the standpoint of paliative care to me it would make sense even if the child was disconnected from life support to ease the suffering of not just the child but also the emotional suffering of the parents to address physical pain of the child.