# Brain-damaged baby to be taken off life support - I have questions about this news story **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 28, 2010, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-damaged-baby-to-be-taken-off-life-support-i-have-questions-about-this-news-story/526743 "2010-01-28T06:43:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-damaged-baby-to-be-taken-off-life-support-i-have-questions-about-this-news-story/526743/81 "2010-02-02T08:16:12Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > I am quite certain that if the judge had wanted to, he could have put a court mandated silence on any and all reporting, and personally he should have. I couldn’t disagree more. A question of medicine, medical ethics, state use of authority, and the desires of a guardian vs. best-interest-of-the-ward debate is so plainly a socially important issue that to squelch the parties (as one-sided as the squealing actually is) would be completely antithetical to the concept of an open and free society. To me, you want the decision-making process in these kinds of things to be as open as possible (once the decision to make it a legal issue has been made) so there is a robust debate and opportunity for progress. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-damaged-baby-to-be-taken-off-life-support-i-have-questions-about-this-news-story/526743/82 "2010-02-02T13:10:46Z")
> [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](#): > > Dangerosa, actually your friend’s outcome is relatively mild, and can be dealt with realatively easily. > There is a HUGE difference between your friend’s case, and a kid who is so profoundly affected they are in a persistant vegetative state or even just profoundly retarded. Sure they are loved…but it is a simple fact that profoundly retarded children are very very hard to take care of. That’s the reason why many of them end up in pediatric nursing homes. > Oh so they want the best of the best? It really is a heartbreakng case. I understand quite a bit, and it is a very sad case. But the question this case raises is " how far do you go in saving a kid?"Yes, the brain is quite remarkable BUT, there are limits. Yes, I realize that. I was telling my friends story in reaction to “how can this happen?” and the choices that need to be made - it isn’t always something that can be pinned directly on the doctors, and often there is a TON of parental second guessing. For the first two months of my friend’s baby’s life, they thought she might never breathe on her own and recommended taking her off life support - for two months after that they thought her liver might fail quickly. They chose not to and hoped for the best possible outcome. Relatively, they got a pretty good one, and watching that, I gain a little understanding for wanting to fight as long as possible. And they actually got a pretty good one. ---
**Author:** ![Flutterby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Flutterby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flutterby)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-damaged-baby-to-be-taken-off-life-support-i-have-questions-about-this-news-story/526743/83 "2010-02-02T16:08:22Z")
> [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](#): > > Oh so they want the best of the best? It really is a heartbreakng case. I understand quite a bit, and it is a very sad case. But the question this case raises is " how far do you go in saving a kid?"Yes, the brain is quite remarkable BUT, there are limits. That they do, and to be honest I don’t begrudge them that. If it were my son I’d be doing the same thing. My son has been sick and in the children’s in Calgary (both the old and new one) and that was tough enough to see him in that bed in the ICU but he was nowhere as bad off as this one seems to be. There are limits and though I wish them all the best if it comes to it I hope they let him go. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-damaged-baby-to-be-taken-off-life-support-i-have-questions-about-this-news-story/526743.md?page=4)