Baby Isaiah

It may surprise long time readers to learn that I have found an issue with which I agree with pro-life activists. That would be the Baby Isaiah case. In this particular case doctors in an Edmonton hospital insist upon removing the ventilator of a 3 months old baby named Isaiah May. The doctors there are under the impression that Isaiah is allegedly brain dead. Isaiah had a tough birth in October wherein he was born in a rural hospital after about 40 hours of labour and no C-section was used despite the increasing apparent need for one. The result of this difficult birth was that the umbilical cord became wrapped around his throat and as a result his brain was severely deprived of oxygen at birth. Doctors believed he would live only a few days but it has been over 3 months. Now the doctors in the Edmonton hospital wanted to use apparently weak patient protection laws to remove Isaiah’s ventilator, which he needs to help him breathe, without parental consent. For whatever reason the doctors insist that this removal is in Isaiah’s best interest even though removing the ventilator would risk Isaiah’s life. Although the doctors allege Isaiah is brain dead, he frequently opens his eyes and moves his limbs. That’s not what happens when you’re brain dead. Thus his parents went to court and won an injunction to block the removal of the ventilator. The judge also ordered the parents to find an independent assessor of Isaiah to determine his neurological status in an independent opinion from the hospital doctors. I agree with this court decision because to me it is irrelevant how brain damaged a person is, if they are still living with continued brain activity, their life should be preserved with every medical effort possible including ventilators. Many people require ventilators to live, even those who do not permanently reside at a hospital. An example of this is American politician Brooke Ellison. In 1990, when Ellison was 11 she almost died when she was hit by a car on her first day of junior high school. This accident left her a quadriplegic and dependent on a ventilator. She ran unsuccessfully for a New York State Senate seat in 2006 for the Democratic Party. There are many other people dependent on ventilators. Isaiah is dependent on a ventilator and so I fail to see how it is in his “best interests” for it to be removed. They ought to make a determination exactly how brain damaged Isaiah is. Even if the brain damage is severe and irreversible, that is irrelevant to this question because if a person is still living medical care is not arbitrarily withheld from them. Isaiah has not had a chance to learn to talk. How do we know he couldn’t learn to talk in future? Nor can they base a decision to withdraw life support on a person’s inability to talk. That is discriminatory. My feelings on this matter are summed up nicely by Isaiah’s mother, Rebecka May: "I believe any life is worth fighting for," (says Rebecka May, who pumps her breast milk for son Isaiah to receive through a tube). "Even if a person has disabilities, they deserve a chance; they are still a person; they still have emotions."

It is also interesting that the article I quoted from says that a goal of medicine is to not prolong dying. Yet how do we know Isaiah would die anytime soon if he stayed on the ventilator. We do not know that and therefore the doctors decision is arbitrary and indeed needs to be reversed.


Article source:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-two-faces-of-a-life-or-death-dilemma/article1445507/