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Neonatal euthanasia without parental consent

Neonatal euthanasia without parental consent

A
provocative article soon to be published in the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry
argues that parental consent should not be a prerequisite for neonatal
euthanasia. At present, the only country to permit neonatal euthanasia is the
The Netherlands. Medical personnel there are not prosecuted for actively
euthanizing infants in great suffering, provided that they satisfy the
requirements of the Groningen Protocol, which include obtaining consent from
the infant's parents. In the forthcoming article, Jacob Appel argues that the
requirement for parental consent should be dropped. 

Let's first consider the question of whether it
could be ethically permissible for medical staff to end the life of a child
without the consent of the parents.

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Why Talk about Ticking Time-Bombs?

Ticking time-bomb cases have played a tremendous role in discourse regarding the moral status of interrogational torture.  In terms of the philosophical literature, an early formulation owes to a seminal essay by Henry Shue:

 

[S]uppose a fanatic, perfectly willing to die rather than collaborate in the thwarting of his own scheme, has set a hidden nuclear device to explode in the heart of Paris.  There is no time to evacuate the innocent people or even the movable art treasures—the only hope of preventing tragedy is to torture the perpetrator, find the device, and deactivate it.

 

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Coercion, compulsion and immunisation

The former head of the British Medical Association, Sir Sandy Macara, has called for the Measles Mumps and Rubella immunisation (MMR) to be a compulsory requirement prior to school entry. The UK has seen a surge in cases of measles over the last couple of years because of a fall in the immunisation rate. Many parents have chosen not to immunise their children as a result of the supposed (and now completely discredited) link between MMR and autism. Immunisation rates have fallen to 70% in some parts of the country. Is compulsory immunisation the answer, and if so, what degree of compulsion should we adopt?

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Is it OK to Eat Neanderthals?

In a recent article in The Observer the publication of a scientific article presenting evidence in favour of a new theory about the fate of the Neanderthals was reported (See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/17/neanderthals-cannibalism-anthropological-sciences-journal). According to this new theory, modern humans ate the Neanderthals!

 

Neanderthals flourished in Europe and Western Asia between 130,000 years and 30,000 years ago. Homo Sapiens are believed to have moved into Europe approximately 30,000 years ago, so it is certainly possible that the two overlapped and that the reason that there are no more Neanderthals is that they ended up in our stomachs. On the other hand it is also possible, as competing theories have it, that the Neanderthals interbred with modern humans and were assimilated into the larger group and it is also possible that Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens had little or no interaction and that the Neanderthals died out as a consequence of the changing climate and other environmental factors. Much remains unknown about the Neanderthals. We do not know how many of them there were and we do not know whether it was actually possible for them to interbreed with modern humans.

 


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On a happier note

Starting with the financial crisis back in autumn it seems that greed and poor judgement are two persistent themes this year. While mankind was not entirely unfamiliar with the plague of greed prior to October 2008, recent events have meant that hardly a day goes by when such vicious matters do not make the headlines in one form or another. Attending an Oxford college ceremony the other day gave a bit of a historical perspective on how to deal with greed. The ‘pennies from the tower’ ceremony involved (or used to involve in times prior to current health and safety regulations) inviting a group of impoverished children onto the college lawn and then letting the pennies rain down from the tower above. But as they started to scurry around, fighting each other for the coins, they noticed that the pennies were hot. Piping hot. This was considered an excellent way to teach the children that greed is a vice and that there is no such thing as a free lunch. No doubt the blisters on their little hands would have served as an efficient reminder of this harsh lesson. One of the problems with this practice is it is far from clear that brute force the best way to introduce more positive values and behavioural patterns in people. Indeed, it is not even clear that the threat of punishment and public humiliation works as a deterrent.

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Shining monkey, sadistic conclusion?

Japanese researchers have genetically modified marmoset monkeys, and demonstrated that the modification can be inherited by their offspring. The modification was the standard green fluorescent protein making the monkey's glow green under UV light, a marker to demonstrate that the modification worked (BBC shows a picture of their feet glowing "an eerie green", while the picture in Nature's News and Views shows the cute monkeys in normal light and the original paper shows both). The long-term aim is to be able to produce transgenic primates that could act as disease models for humans – many conditions do not map well onto mice and rats. But is it acceptable to introduce heritable illness conditions into animals?

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Forensic Failure

Testimonial power is the power we have to determine the opinion of others by testifying. To testify is to make sincere assertions in such circumstances under which we are understood to be offering those assertions as to be worth relying upon. When things go well, we tell people what we know and they come to know it through our telling them. We all have varying degrees of testimonial power relative to subject matter, to circumstance, to our knowledge and to what we are known by others to know.

 

Forensic experts are granted immense testimonial power. Their testimony is taken to be sufficient for conviction in the absence of any other evidence. Judges are reluctant to delve into the grounds of their expertise or into underlying disagreements among experts on the meaning of forensic evidence or the basis of interpretation. Their claims are taken to be backed by the epistemic authority of scientific method.

 

I do not think that forensic experts presently warrant the testimonial power they have been granted.

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Free will and brain stimulation

A study published recently in Science magazine investigated human volition in patients undergoing brain surgery. Michel Desmurget and his colleagues electrically stimulated the brains of seven subjects awake under local anaesthesia. When the right inferior parietal regions were stimulated, the subjects reported an intention to move their left hand, arm or foot. Stimulation of the left inferior parietal region elicited an intention to talk and move the lips. When regions were stimulated more intensely, the patients believed that they had actually moved those bodily parts, although no movements were in fact performed.

In commenting this study, New Scientist claimed that scientists had found a “possible site of free will.” While one could argue about the wording of that statement, it seems pertinent to consider whether this and similar other studies have implications for the free will debate.

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A ‘bonkers waste of money’?

The University of Oxford and the British government have come under fire for spending £300,000 on a study showing that 'ducks like water' (see e.g. The Guardian). The Taxpayer's Alliance has issued a statement pillorying this 'bonkers waste of money', and on surface it sounds like they're right. However, when you look deeper it becomes apparent that the type of research which was performed may well be of great value.

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