Technology and Quality of Life
In response to “Playing God With a Baby’s Life,” Commentary, Oct. 31:
Margaret Ecker’s modest proposal to euthanize severely debilitated babies is not so radical a proposal as she says. It has been around for centuries. And although based upon noble intentions, has always (the Netherlands included) degenerated into a cultural elitism that has had tragic consequences for the elderly, the handicapped and sometimes the racially impure.
I take care of many such “throw-away” patients--patients paralyzed from the neck down, patients with severe brain injuries, patients whose minds are chained and bent by drugs and patients whom nobody loves or wants. Surely many of these patients fit Ecker’s criterion of merely possessing flesh rather than being active purveyors of “love, happiness, significance and culture.”
No, life is tragic and while no one understands why the Almighty visits this tragedy upon some and not others, we who are left to care for these broken lives have to muddle through as best we can and, alas, even help pay the bill. But we cannot codify solely on the basis of our medical frailties and a financial bottom line, for it makes for a meaner world whose decisions are made by cost accountants. These lives are more than budgetary inconveniences. These are human beings--who sometimes confirm our prognostications and sometimes make medical science look foolish.
Yes, Ms. Ecker and those who have designated themselves as the ethical and cultural elite “will remember, love and grieve” for that tiny brain-injured child before putting her to death. And next week they will come looking for patients like mine who are unlovely to look at and who have not a wit to contribute to their elite little world. Alas, the slippery slope is alive and well. Now who’s playing God?
D.O. COTTON MD
Rancho Los Amigos Rehab Hospital
* Ecker discusses a topic that is controversial but, nevertheless, needs to be explored: Should we keep someone alive that will never live? As Ecker states, the 6-month-old girl “will never walk, talk or understand anything.” But she will be kept alive for the sake of society. Are we so blind as not to see that there are times when the “right to life” issue does not apply? This baby girl, who is irreversibly damaged for life, will never have that right because someone took it away. Life means living, and she does not live; she only will be kept alive.
It is time we look openly at this issue and start making the same humane decisions for humans that we make for our “beloved” animals. Let us bring death back into our lives and accept it as an alternative to being kept alive when there is no hope of ever living again.
ROSWITHA BROOKS
La Verne
* Unfortunately, the question behind the heartbreaking experiences of Merrill Joan Gerber’s 85-year-old mother (“A System That Could Make You Sick,” Oct. 26) and nurse Ecker’s severely brain-damaged 6-month-old patient is not being examined by the Administration’s proposed health care reform or any alternative plans. Only the state of Oregon seems willing to attempt to confront the big question our advanced medical technology is forcing upon us: With finite financial health care resources, what are the circumstances and priorities we can agree upon in the perpetuation of human life?
Until we individually and as a nation examine and face up to this question, our medical practitioners, under law, will continue to keep vegetative, long-suffering and brain-dead patients alive, regardless of the quality of their lives.
JUNE MAGUIRE
Mission Viejo
* Reduced to its essentials, Ecker argues for euthanizing a disabled baby not because the baby is offended by life, but because the baby’s life offends her. Wow!
BONIFACIO BONNY GARCIA
San Gabriel
