Life Ruling for Baby With Brain Defect Upheld

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court’s ruling that prevented a baby born with much of her brain missing from being declared dead so her organs could be used for transplants.

The decision came in the Baby Theresa case, which attracted international attention last spring. The South Florida baby died nine days after she was born with only a brain stem, a condition called anencephaly.

Before the baby’s inevitable death, her parents, saying they wanted her short life to have some meaning, asked that she be declared dead so other children might live with the donated organs. Doctors had said that her organs became less and less viable as she neared death.

A trial court denied their petition. The 4th District Court of Appeal upheld that decision and sent the case to the state’s high court.

“We find no basis to expand the common law to equate anencephaly with death,” Justice Gerald Kogan wrote in the majority ruling Thursday.

Although some babies might be saved by organs from anencephalic babies, there is not enough proof that such donations save lives, Kogan wrote.

The decision left in place the traditional definition of death, which is based on heart and lung activity.