Futility Case

bollix Chris was born at 23 weeks gestational age (40 weeks gestation is full-term) and weighs yet about 1. 2 pounds. Because of extreme prematurity and extremely humiliated birth weight, this sister has less than a 10% chance of surviving. Even if the baby survives, the likelihood of very serious physical and developmental damage (cerebral palsy, blindness, hearing impairments, respiratory impairments, and other capers) is very high. (In one recent study, ALL of the infants who survived long exuberant to be discharged from intensive c ar had significant long-term damage.) Treatment, that is, treatments, would be invading, painful, and would push over a long period of time. It is really so sad that a newborn baby would begin his sprightliness under such very difficult circumstances. What is worse is that the treatments that would supposedly save him would kind of condemn him into the most compromised human beings attainable. Instead of living the normal, c arfree existen ce of a child, Chris would defend a life that is forever associated with pain, medicaments, surgeries, and rehabilitation.Not even an cock-a-hoop can handle such a distressing way of life. still the doctors of Chris cannot just refrain from giving him treatments. They are doctors, after all, and it is their duty to recruit the swan. Even the hospital policy and the courts would certainly agree with them. Furthermore, it is the right of the sick to receive treatment that would cure him or her of his ailment. Does this mean that the physicians of Chris can intimately turn him into a human guinea pig?While a doctor has an obligation to cure the ailing, the welfare of his or her patient of essential always be prioritized above this duty (Cohen-Kohler and Illingworth 366). In the context of the cognitive content of the limits of medicine, the concept of patient welfare is synonymous to the rights to informed consent and to deplete a say on the treatment plan that the doctor dev ised. just now put, any steps that a physician lead take to continue or withhold treatment must be fully explained to the patient beforehand and carried out with his or her consent.Furthermore, the wishes of the patient must be taken into consideration. However, because Chris is a newborn baby (making him a minor in the look of the law), it is his parents who should behave the final decisions on a treatment plan for him. In both the legal and the mixer perspectives, the parents are considered as the primary custodians of their children (Maccoby and Mnookin 282). Unless it has been be that they are incapable of carrying out their responsibilities as parents, it is they who are supposed to limit for their minor children.It is permissible to make Chris comfortable but not initiate treatments that would prolong his life. It must be remembered that because he is premature and has very low birth weight, his excerption rate it less than 10%. Should Chris survive, he will spend hi s entire life battling serious health conditions such as cerebral palsy, blindness, hearing impairments, and respiratory impairments. Furthermore, the treatments that will be administered in direct to prolong his life are invasive and painful and would last indefinitely.The problem with many doctors is that in their excessive zeal to carry out their duty, they overcome the concept of human life to biological normality (Stark 6). Their idea of a cured patient is someone who is biologically a kick the bucket and is free of complaint, neer mind if the treatments that are given to him or to her severely reduce the tone of voice of his or her life. Medicine should not be limited to the elimination of sickness or the treatment of an injury. Rather, medicine must treat illness and/or injury with the goal of restoring the overall health and functionality of a person.As the World health Organization (WHO) puts it, health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (qtd. in Furber 192). Under the present circumstances, therefore, it is not permissible to do everything possible to save Chris life. Even the most radical treatments would save him completely in the sense that he would be kept biologically alive. These would not alto deposither spare Chris from the debilitating effects of cerebral palsy, blindness, hearing impairments, and respiratory impairments.Worse, these treatments would make him suffer even more pain. Subjecting Chris to more treatments defeats the very purpose of medicine restoring people to their fullest functionality by curing them of their disease and or injury. How can Chris live the life of a normal child if he cannot even get out of bed without machines attached to him? How can he and his parents enjoy life as a family if he constantly has to undergo painful and invasive long-term treatments? What is the point of keeping Chris alive if he will just spend the rest of li fe in illness and pain?putt him on aggressive lifesaving treatment would merely worsen the situation. To begin with, his chances of survival are only less than 10%. Should Chris live, he will rest a host of complications that would most likely end in death. He could likewise die while undergoing treatments the human body can only take so much pain, medicines, surgeries, and rehabilitation. Simply put, with or without treatments, Chris is likely to go for at any moment. By putting him on aggressive lifesaving treatments, his doctors are giving his parents false hopes.Instead of enabling them to prepare themselves for the impending death of their son, they are making them hold on to futile case. Babies are human beings and therefore, they in like manner have the right to live and die with dignity. Doctors do not have the right to withhold this from them simply because they do not have the electrical condenser to decide for themselves and/or because of a misplaced idea of what med icine should accomplish. kit and caboodle Cited Cohen-Kohler, Jillian Clare and Patricia Illingworth. Access to Medicine and the Role of Corporate Social Responsibility The take aim to Craft a Global Pharmaceutical Systemwith Integrity. The Cambridge Textbook of Bioethics Eds. Peter A. singer and Adrian M. Viens. Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 2008. 359-368. Furber, Christine. Promoting Health to Men. Mens Health An Introduction for Nurses and Health Professionals. Eds. Tony Harrison and Karen Dignan. capital of the United Kingdom Harcourt Brace and Company Limited, 1999. 191-210. Maccoby, Eleanor E. and Robert H. Mnookin. Dividing the Child Social and Legal Dilemmas of Custody. 3rd ed. Cambridge, mamma Harvard University Press, 1992. Stark, Andrew. The Limits of Medicine. New York, New York Cambridge University Press, 2006.