THE HARDEST CHOICE
Publié le 07/02/2012
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In Baltimore three years ago, the parents of a newborn Mongoloid baby refused to allow an operation to correct a fatal defect in the infant's digestive tract. Despite pressure from doctors and hospital personnel, they refused to change their minds, and the child slowly starved to death.
In Portland, Maine, last month, when parents made a similar decision about their severely deformed infant, hospital officiais asked a court to decide. A judge, holding that the baby bad a right to live, issued an order that allowed doctors to operate on the child. Despite the surgery, the infant died 15 days after birth.
«
often only telling the parents tbat their babies were stillbom.
But public discussion
of this unpleasant alternative is a relati
vely new phenomenon.
Doctors and hospital officiais across
the
U.S.
are now openly acknowledging tbat there are cases in
which ali concemed agree that the
best-and perbaps even the
most
humane-treatment for a severely deformed infant is none
at ali .•.
...
As a result, the painful decision to treat or not to treat a
deformed infant rests squarely on the shoulders
of the parents
and their physicians.
To help parents make their decision,
doctors in major hospitals
now meet with parents of a deformed
baby as soon
as possible after delivery, explain the nature of
the child's problems, and outline the steps that must be taken
if life is to be preserved.
They also try to provide an honest
evaluation
of the kind of life their efforts may succeed in pre
serving.
Despite the shock and disappointment of ba ving a
deformed child, most parents automatically opt for life and
urge doctors to do wbatever they cao to maintain it.
This may
change with the more open debate on whether allowing a baby
to die is preferable to dooming it to an inhumanely bandicapped
existence.
TIME, March 25, 1974.
1.
Commentaire dirigé
1) Should doctors automatically let severely deformed babies
die
at birth? Why do they disagree about it?
2) Do you think on the contrary that the parents must be
informed
and make the decision themselves?
3) Do you agree with people who think that life must be pre
served in ail cases ?
4) What is more important for you: "life" or "the quality of
life"?
5) Can 't euthanasia in general be sometimes considered as
"a crime of love"?
2.
Version
Traduire depuis :
"As a result..." jusqu'à " ...
handicapped
existence"..
»
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