April 25, 2007

Fight over baby's life support divides ethicists

Read the story here.

This story illustrates two challenges. One is the fact that administering medicine is not always a matter of more being better. The second is that with the growing privatization of medicine in a for-profit environment, questions are raised about what the actual bottom line is, (profit or health and how are each measured) if not in practice at least in appearance.

I don't know what is actually best for the child in this situation, but one thing is true about this quote.


"Emilio's mother, Catarina Gonzales, on the other hand, is fighting to keep her son on the ventilator, allowing him to die 'naturally, the way God intended.'"

There is nothing natural about a ventilator on one hand, and on the other, I don't always want what is natural.

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