Newspaper Article

THE DEATH OF BABY DOE HOW A DECISION IN A SMALL MIDWESTERN HOSPITAL TOUCHED OFF A NATIONWIDE DEBATE

Article by Jeff Lyon Copyright by Jeff Lyon

1985

Overview

Schaffer's ambiguity extends to whether he would have tried to overpower Dr. Owens to get at the child. First he says he doubts it. But then he adds passionately: \" I probably would have started that IV, yes, sir. And I don't think it would have been advisable for anyone to try and stop me. I'd have gone past anyone who tried to interfere with my treatment of a critically ill baby.\" He knew that had he begun an IV, he might have been held in contempt of court. \"I didn't care,\" he says, \"because we have a judge in town who needs another job, and maybe when the next election comes, he'll get one. Why not subvert a judge's decisions? It depends (on) what's right and wrong.\" An autopsy was conducted by John Pless, the Monroe County coroner. Dr. Pless discovered that there had been no enlarged heart; the X rays had been wrong. Nor could he find any direct evidence of brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation. But the child did indeed have a tracheoesophageal fistula. The coroner says he has no doubt the child was, in medical vernacular, \"a bad baby.\" It is likely to be years before the issues that were raised that night in Bloomington, Indiana, are settled to society's satisfaction. In response to the episode, the Reagan administration imposed a series of federal fiats designed to ensure that virtually all handicapped babies, no matter how severe their disabilities, receive the medically indicated life-saving treatment. The quality of a child's future life was not to enter into the equation. These \"Baby Doe\" regulations, as they came to be called, were vigorously opposed by the medical community, which considered them an infringement on parental rights and doctors' discretion. A federal court ultimately ruled them invalid. But Congress thereupon passed legislation defining nontreatment as a form of child abuse. The new law, signed by President Reagan last October, insists on treatment of all handicapped children regardless of parental wishes --save where the child is chronically and irreversibly comatose or where the treatment would merely prolong dying. It is expected that the law will be challenged in court, most likely by the American Medical Association.

• Publisher: Tribune Publishing Company, LLC