Ethical Issues: The Baby Doe Case

Neonatal Nursing is a career that attracts many individuals with a love for people, especially children. An individual with willpower, determination, and a loving heart. Someone who cares about someone else’s child as if they were their own. An individual who can be both sympathetic for other’s emotions while also dealing with their own. Neonatal nurses have to know how to handle stress, difficult decisions, and the loss of someone that they have come to love and with whom they have built a connection. An article by Strandas and Fredriksen states, “It is hard to imagine a more fragile and helpless group of patients than critically ill newborn or premature infants. The child is completely at the mercy of his care providers’ efforts and their

The first issue that the Children’s Bureau focused on was infant and maternal death. This was a problem because there were not any standards for how a baby was supposed to be delivered. Prenatal and postnatal care were also not well-known; therefore, many mothers did not receive the care that they needed to make sure they were doing well before and after birthing a child. There are not many statistics that show how many infants and mothers died each year due to the little to no standards that were in place at the time, but about one in ten infants died within the first year of their life (“The story of..”). Julia Lathrop was the director of the Children’s Bureau. She was the person who brought the infant and maternal deaths issue to light.

Health care law covers plethora of issues that are considered by health care industry. It provides information on development of hospitals as influenced by medical progress, teaching us the failures, success, and what can be avoided to repeat the failures of the past. Although, Henrietta’s right were clearly violated, back then, it was not considered violated, because protections that we have in today’s law did not exist.

82, NO. 3, SEPTEMBR (2004), the welfare of the child is one that doctors should always taken into to consideration, can the patient create a stable environment, does the patient have the means to take care of the child or children financially? If not should the doctor be able to make all of us responsible for this child? Due to the fact that the mother doesn’t have an income is going to place the needs of all fourteen children plus mom on the taxpayer; making all the death threats and angry comments on her website understandable. We all know that violence is never right; nevertheless the public anger is coming from their concern for these children and for their own pocket.

Then in 1915 heads began to turn when “Dr. Haiselden allowed a deformed baby boy to die rather than give him possible life saving surgery,” (Historical Timeline – Euthanasia, 2017, N/A). According to Ian

1969 was not a normal year for eight month pregnant Teresa Keeler and her unborn baby. Sadly Teresa was beaten very badly by her ex-husband. Before the incident happen her husband told Teresa that he was going stomp out of her .with God mercy, the unborn baby was delivered a live with fractured skull. The persecutor tried to accuse the ex-husband with the beating his wife and attempt of murder of the fetus. Unfortunately, the California supreme court dismiss the murder charge by calming that the fetus was not a human being. Due to the public pressure the court had to amend the rule saying fetus murder only apply if the fetus is eight week and older.

Most of the issues involved with wrongful conception cases have been adjudicated through the state courts from the 1960s to the present. Almost always they have ruled that parents cannot collect damages for the birth of a normal, healthy child, even as the result of medical malpractice through defective sterilization and contraception procedures or failure to carry out correct genetic testing or fully inform parents of the results. Nor have the courts ruled that the birth of a handicapped child is a life unworthy of living, and instead have argued for judicial restraint in making such legal and moral determinations. Even in the case of the severely handicapped, such as children with Down syndrome, American courts have not ruled that nonexistence would be preferable to living a limited life. On the other hand, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that parents can collect personal injury damages as the result the birth of an impaired or unplanned child, at least in the recovery of medical costs if not all the expenses of rearing the child to adulthood. State courts also allow the recovery of damages for medical expenses, training and treatment for handicapped children born as the result of failed abortion, contraception or sterilization. Due to the Roe v. Wade case of 1973, parents have the right to determine whether a child will be born or not, although recent efforts in

The Reagan Administration disagreed and argued that, “If a physician or parent chooses to withhold full treatment when the exceptions are not met, they are liable for medical neglect”, (Resnick, 2011). The Baby Doe Rules mandate followed and stated that hospitals that have access or are federally funded, the physicians have the

Summary: “The Stormy Legacy of Baby Doe,” discusses the issues Baby Doe suffered from and some of the outcomes of the Baby Doe Amendment. Baby Doe had both down syndrome and esophageal atresia. Down syndrome is a genetic abnormality in which there are three chromosomes of a specific chromosome instead of two. It can increase the risk of many health problems such as heart defects, higher chances of infection, respiratory problems, obstructed digestive system, and leukemia. It also causes the individual to have development problems and learning deficiencies. The second medical issue that Baby Doe, esophageal atresia, is when the esophagus has two sections. One section leads to the stomach and the other leads to the throat. This is dangerous to

Teamwork- It has been found that relying too heavily on health information technology (IT) for communication can reduce teamwork (Yoder-Wise, 2011, p. 215). With the availability of information on the internet and computer software, nurses do not need to rely on co-workers or physicians for information. According to Yoder-Wise (2011), IT “will never eliminate the need for personal communication and teamwork” (p. 215).

This autocratic model of care lead to infamous cases such as Murray v McMurchy, where a doctor sterilised a female patient during a cesarean without her consent. The surgeon argued the sterilisation was in her ‘best interest’ as she had a tumour, however, this argument was vehemently rejected by the judge, who explained that the doctor acted on convenience

Staff starts to get really excited to have a new manager, after four months without one. The charge nurses on the unit were excited to have a new manager who will provide feedback and not afraid to discipline staff. According to the new manager’s interview, she has experience firing staff who do not follow her guidelines. The charge nurses had a meeting where the interim manager and new manager where they met up and discussed what needed revamping and what difficulties the staff had providing feedback to our colleagues. The charge nurses previously felt unsupported and didn't know how to hold their colleagues responsible for their actions. It was difficult because they would get push back from their colleagues, with no feedback from their

Here is a case in Florida that started a huge up roar involving the rights of a pregnant woman and her fetus. She was forced into medical treatment that was against her will. In addition to the issues that arose with the court order, there are concerns within the medical community with the role that the physician played with the patients’ refusal and judicial intervention.

The ethical principle that was violated which could result to a civil act based facts was the patient right more specifically right of privacy. Whenever patient information is withholding and could not be given to the patient as long as the patient is deemed competent regardless of the medical status, this considers as a violation which can be prosecuted. According to Thomas and Moore (2013), individuals are entitled to make decisions about their healthcare if they are deemed competent. To be competent is the capacity or the ability of the person to understand information presented, to appreciate the consequences of acting or not acting on that information, and to make a choice. This patient was deprived from his own information which is entitled

Every 4 ½ minutes a baby is born premature and/or with a birth defect. According to the CDC, the percentage of babies born in the U.S that are premature or have some kind of birth defect is 9.6% with a slight increase since 2015 of 9.63%. The ethical dilemma and problems of caring and treating premature and congenitally ill infants is not new. In the past, critically ill neonates were weighed every day, kept warm, breast fed, and kept isolated away from others. They are often sent home to be cared for by the parents and maybe a midwife and placed in an incubator that was made of scrap materials. Neonatologist, nurses and parents would only hope for the best turn out of the infant. Premature and critically ill babies either lived or died without any kind of medical intervention at all. It wasn’t until 1922 that the intensive care unit (NICU) was established in hospitals. Even with the establishment of the NICU and advanced technology the ethical questions still arise.