Baby Talk

DID Theresa Ann Campo Pearson have a right to life?

Born on March 21 and dead 10 days later, Theresa Ann experienced nothing during her brief life--if life it may be called--because she was born without a cerebral cortex. The only functioning part of her brain was the portion of the brain stem which controls breathing and heartbeat.

During the eighth month of her pregnancy, her mother discovered the fetus' deformity. She decided to undergo a Caesarian section in order to preserve the baby's organs from damage. Her intent was to have the baby declared brain dead as soon as it was born, so that its organs could be donated before they deteriorated.

Yet the Florida courts refused to comply. Since her brain stem was functional, they reasoned, she was not brain dead.

By the time Theresa Ann died of respiratory failure, her organs had deteriorated to the point that they could not be used for transplants. From a medical point of view, her mother's ordeal had been in vain.

WHILE one may sympathize with Campo's position, the decision to kill a baby--even one who is brain-dead for all practical purposes--fills most of us with an instinctual repugnance. It's like robbing a corpse: it doesn't hurt anyone, but one can't help but feel that it's dishonorable.

But what is the justification for this repugnance? No matter what school of ethical philosophy you belong to, it's embarrassingly hard to find a good reason why the court's decision was more humanitarian or moral than the mother's plans for her baby's fate.

From the standpoint of Theresa Ann, one can hardly claim that the Florida courts "improved" her life by allowing her to live out her 10 days. Nor can one claim that Florida defended any rights that would ever have mattered to her--since technically, nothing could have ever mattered to her.

Medical opinion on anencephalic infants (the scientific term for her condition) is unanimous in asserting that they have no possibility of a conscious or subconscious mental life. Their nervous system is not even equipped to sustain basic organ functioning beyond a few days.

By allowing her life to end naturally, the courts were not safeguarding her rights or her quality of life, nor were they accomplishing anything concrete for any individual involved. This was not their primary intention.

THE SPECTER haunting this decision was Nazi Germany and its policy of killing the aged, infirm, mentally handicapped and other people whose quality of life was poor enough (as the Nazis saw it) to justify eliminating them for the greater good of society. This was the slippery slope down which the Florida courts feared to slide.

The judges were concerned that ending Theresa Ann's life would set a harmful precedent: people who were not completely braindead could be exterminated based on their projected "quality of life." Unwilling to usher in a new Nazi era, they adopted the "Who are we to decide?" approach to Theresa Ann's life.

But as Sartre said, the failure to choose is also a decision. By refusing to pass sentence on the lives of anencephalic infants, this precedent passes sentence on the anonymous children who will die from the scarcity of organ transplants. These children are not known by name in the newspapers and were not present in the courtroom. Still, it was their lives that the judges were weighing against the lives of infants like Theresa Ann.

Because they were afraid to set a totalitarian precedent, the courts set a tragic and wasteful one. They should have allowed Theresa Ann's parents and doctors to end her life. This decision would have implied that anencephalic infants were a special case of de facto brain death.

Such a precedent would permit parents of children like Theresa Ann to make realistic choices about the fate of their babies without implying a "Final Solution" for other patients with a real possibility of a functioning cerebral cortex.

THERE IS a qualitative difference between these patients--who have been, and may be in the future, human beings with some capacity for mental experience--and infants who have never had and will never have that capacity. This qualitative difference would prevent the slippery slope that the judges feared.

The important thing to remember is that this is not a matter of humanitarian issues versus practical ones. A sick child's need for an organ transplant is also a humanitarian issue. The case of Theresa Ann forces us to question whether a baby without the capacity for sentient experience can even be an object of humanitarian concern--whether, in fact, she can be called human.

To avoid this conclusion by saying "Who are we to decide?" is a decision by default, and one which may end a real child's life.