Final Version of ‘Baby Doe’ Rules Approved

The government today gave final approval to regulations requiring hospitals to treat severely disabled infants unless doctors determine the infants are irreversibly comatose or would die even with treatment.

Margaret M. Heckler, secretary of health and human services, signed the final version of the so-called “Baby Doe” regulations. They become effective in 30 days.

Heckler said in a statement that the final rule “reflects a careful balance between the need to establish effective protection of the rights of disabled infants and the need to avoid unreasonable governmental intrusion into the practice of medicine and parental responsibilities.”

3 Cases Specified

The regulations specify only three cases in which doctors are justified in withholding medically necessary treatment, including food, water and medicine:

--When the infant is chronically and irreversibly comatose.

--When treatment merely prolongs an inevitable death.

--When treatment is so extreme and so likely to be futile that it becomes inhumane to administer it.

An appendix to the rule also advises hospitals and state governments that decisions on treatment are not to be based on assumptions regarding the “quality of life” that a handicapped infant is likely to enjoy should he survive.

The Baby Doe rules are named after a highly publicized 1982 case in Bloomington, Ind., in which treatment was withheld from a newborn infant suffering severe handicaps.

The Reagan Administration proposed a rule to require such treatment, but it was struck down by the courts. Congress stepped in last year and passed legislation requiring the rules. The new regulations are based on that law.