Extreme Prematurity and Parental Rights After Baby Doe: The Child Abuse Amendments of 1984 Established the Norms for Treating Disabled Newborns, But They Did Not Address the Treatment of Premature Babies. Parents and Physicians Need a Framework for Decisionmaking. A Decision Handed Down Recently by the Texas Supreme Court is a Step Forward‪.‬

Contemporary ethical and legal norms hold that all human beings born alive should be treated equally, regardless of disability. Yet there is a strong sense that some lives are so diminished in capacity for interaction or experience that little good is achieved by providing medical treatments necessary to keep them alive. In addition, many persons believe that the parents who have the chief responsibility to provide care should have a dominant say in whether their children are treated. (1) Before 1970, the question of whether to withhold treatment from such newborns was rarely contested. The ancient Spartan practice of exposing babies on hillsides and keeping those that survived had a contemporary counterpart in the common medical practice of simply not treating those born with major handicaps. As late as 1972, some doctors and parents thought it appropriate to withhold from children with Down syndrome or spina bifida surgery necessary for their survival. Noted pediatricians published articles in major medical journals reporting the withholding of life-saving treatment from infants with many kinds of disabilities. (2) Surveys of doctors showed that these practices were not exceptions. (3)