Bioethical Considerations in the Care of Handicapped Newborns

The moral justification for withholding vitally necessary medical treatment from defective newborn infants is examined. It is argued that these infants have essentially the same rights as every other individual, including the right to protection of their lives. There may of course be circumstances for sick infants, as for other individuals, in which it is morally and medically in their best interest to allow them to die. Such circumstances may include irreversible unconsciousness, imminent death, dependence on unusual life-support systems, or the prospect of prolonged agony. Considerations such as the expense of care are morally irrelevant to such life and death decisions but are conditions requiring the sharing of the family's burden by society.