Baby Isaiah revisited

I'd like to revisit quickly the Baby Isaiah case again to respond to a comment made on my previous post on the subject. Somebody posted a comment and said that the term "brain dead" was never used in the article I linked. I have seen other articles on this case that do use this term, such as this one:



http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2010/01/19/12544441-qmi.html?cid=rssnewslast24hours


Nevertheless, if in fact Isaiah is not brain dead, why remove the ventilator? It is not relevant whether he would be able to live a normal life. If he is alive he is entitled a chance to live with the assistance of a ventilator.

Obama's State of the Union Address

Barack Obama’s State of the Union address seems very good. Its great that he points out that he and absolutely everyone else hated the bank bailouts. But I would point out that I’ve seen conservatives in the United States blame the hated bank bailouts only on Obama and point to it as example of why Obama is socialist, etc. American conservatives backing Republican Scott Brown in the recent upset Massachusetts Senate election cited the bank bailouts as one of the reasons that they believe Obama is so terrible. But I would point out that the bank bailout bill was signed by George W. Bush in 2008. I’m not sure if Obama was even there to vote for the bank bailout – he was probably out campaigning at the time. American conservatives also have railed against Obama’s stimulus package. But their argument does not hold much water when one considers that Bush also supported a stimulus package in the fall of 2008 but Republicans in his own party filibustered the Bush-supported stimulus until the session ran out. All of these things were just being done to prevent the collapse of the economy and these bailouts and stimulus packages do seem to be preventing the economy from collapsing and seem to be even helping the economy to recover. So in conclusion I’d say a lot more work needs to be done in the United States capital but Obama has given a great State of the Union address.

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/

Good job Michael Ignatieff

Needless to say I am thankful that the election threat has been averted but I still want to take issue with past Conservative characterizations of the previous Liberal proposal to reform Employment Insurance. Tories classified the Liberal suggestion as a “socialist scheme” but that is something I would take issue with. I know of a previous Conservative government who enriched Unemployment Insurance – the government of John Diefenbaker who extended unemployment insurance benefits due to rising unemployment around 1958. The book I have says the Diefenbaker government extended unemployment insurance benefits by 6 weeks, which is longer than the , which is longer than the 5 week extension the current Tories brought forward. My point is that Tories have enriched Employment Insurance before and could do so again and the fact that Tories have enriched unemployment insurance shows that EI enrichment is not a socialist scheme. Sure Diefenbaker was largely a Red Tory. But even Harper’s blue Toryism doesn’t prevent him from supporting farm subsidies due to his farmer base of support still desiring farm subsidies. The Conservatives have actually offered some enrichment of farm subsidies so why is enriching Employment Insurance a “socialist scheme”? And in regards to the EI deal that has been reached by Ignatieff and Harper, I disagree with the negative characterizations of it that I’m seeing in the media, especially from the National Post. National Post columnists in particular are painting Ignatieff in a very negative light with regard to this deal with Harper on EI. They say he caved in from the conditions he set on Monday morning. Nothing could be farther from the truth. At his Monday morning press conference Ignatieff made it clear that his conditions for supporting the government were not rigid demands. He said at that Monday morning press conference that he was flexible and reasonable. He demanded answers from the government on how it would get out of deficit, how it would handle the isotope crisis, how much infrastructure money has actually been spent, and what plans the government has to reform Employment Insurance. Contrary to what is implied in the negative columns about Ignatieff, Ignatieff never made it a condition that Employment Insurance reform be passed into law this week. He only asked what the governments plans to reform EI were. Contrary to what is said in the negative columns about Ignatieff, Ignatieff got all 4 of his conditions met. The government released more information about how it planned to get out of deficit. Ignatieff may also have been given more information about this in his private meetings with Harper. The government agreed to give written information about what it planned to do about the isotope crisis. That is the second condition met. Harper told Ignatieff his plans for Employment Insurance reform, which was his plan to give the self-employed access to EI. Ignatieff and Harper agreed to strike a blue-ribbon panel to study both how to implement access to EI for the self-employed and how to make other improvements to EI. The combination of those things is Ignatieff’s third condition being met. The only condition that is unclear whether it has been met is the condition that the government make it clearer how much infrastructure money has actually been spent. But I think it likely that Harper gave Ignatieff information on this during their meetings which would mean that all four conditions were met and Ignatieff did NOT back down as indicated in the many negative columns written about Ignatieff.

Congratulations to the Nova Scotia NDP!

I want to congratulate the Nova Scotia NDP on winning a substantial majority government on June 9. I am pleased that the Liberal Party came in second place in the popular vote and that the governing Tories actually fell to third place in the popular vote. I’m glad the Tories in Nova Scotia were routed. I’m also glad that the Liberal Party will form the Official Opposition and I congratulate Kelly Regan, wife of Halifax West Liberal MP Geoff Regan for wining a seat for the Liberals in Bedford-Birch Cove against the incumbent Tory MLA. I also congratulate Liberal Andrew Younger for his victory in Dartmouth East against an NDP incumbent. The Liberals did great under the circumstances so congratulations to both the N.S. NDP and the N.S. Liberals!

The economy

Stephen Harper recently indicated that the economy was on the mend because the economy contracted by about 5.4% instead of by about 6.5% as predicted. It’s certainly possible the economy may be improving but is it really accurate to say the economy is on the mend simply because it didn’t contract by quite as much as projected? Projections and estimations have tendency to be off by some margin of error. Maybe the economy is improving but an economic contraction of over 5% is quite serious and not something to celebrate.

Swine flu

In recent weeks I have been preoccupied by exams and studying. I didn’t notice that the swine flu epidemic had gotten way worse. Tens of thousands of people infected (some people think it could be hundreds of thousands). Multiple children have died of swine flu in the United States. My heart goes out to all the families of the children and adults who have died of swine flu worldwide. I didn’t realize how severe this epidemic was. I’m so sorry.