The temptation of neonatal euthanasiain the management of the severely compromised neonate
- Autores: Roberta Spola
- Localización: Medicina y Ética: Revista internacional de bioética, deontología y ética médica, ISSN-e 2594-2166, ISSN 0188-5022, Vol. 29, Nº. 2 (abril-junio/April-June), 2018, págs. 293-320
- Idioma: inglés
- Títulos paralelos:
- La tentación de la eutanasia neonatal en la gestión del neonato gravemente comprometido
- Enlaces
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Resumen
In the last forty years, the development of ever more advanced technologies has resulted in a surge of intensive care as well as of assistance of extremely preterm newborns or neonates with severe diseases within neonatology, as to move more and more the survival limit. At the same time, it has made its way in recent years a eugenic attitude towards so-called life-limiting illnesses, like preterm infants or those with severe malformations. Several issues put physicians to the test in everyday life: when to treat? When to stop the treatment? How important is autonomy of parents? The neonatal intensive care units have gradually provided multifarious answers to these questions with protocols and recommendations that are influenced by the anthropological reference. The correct attitude, that seeks to avoid aggressive treatment when the child’s death is inevitable and imminent, risks to ending up in areas where the death of the child is anticipated and planed in order to avoid supposed or hypothetical future suffering, evaluated by the physician in accordance to predetermined criteria.Therefore, life judged as unworthy will not have right to care. Onthe other side, new therapeutic approaches aimed to improve quality of life, not through death, but through the cure have emerged. Examples include fetal medicine, which treats diseases pre-natally and comfort care, which takes care of seriously ill neonates in the postnatal period. This article will outline a historical and geographical pathway of these different approaches, trying to clarify the underlying ethical basis.
