Parental Responsibility and the Infant Bioethics Committee

Abstract

The prognosis is not good for an infant whose entire intestine has been destroyed by necrotizing enterocolitis. An infant bioethics committee is asked to advise whether the parents should be offered the option of total parenteral intravenous nutrition, with its ultimately fatal complications, for their child. Committee members agree that the option of intravenous feeding should be offered, and that it is morally acceptable for the parents to refuse it. Fleischman reviews the issues that an infant bioethics committee must consider when it is asked to help decide what treatment options will be discussed with the family of a seriously ill neonate. (KIE abstract)