Baby Doe Redux? The Department of Health and Human Services and the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002: A Cautionary Note on Normative Neonatal Practice

PEDIATRICS ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 116 (4) ◽  
pp. e576-e585 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. A. Sayeed
PEDIATRICS ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 572-572
Author(s):  
PAUL F. WEHRLE

In Reply.— I am concerned that the Academy's position on treatment decisions regarding seriously ill newborns may have been construed to be one in alliance with the government's hard-line stand on interventionism and insistence upon treatment. It has always been our position that neither the government nor the courts should interfere in decisions best made by parents in consultation with medical professionals. The Academy is as committed to this concept today as it was when it first challenged the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and successfully struck down the first "Baby Doe" rule which ignored the role of parents in this critical decision-making arena.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 428-429
Author(s):  
CAROL LYNN BERSETH

Controversy and public attention has swirled around the recent Jane Doe case and the recent "Baby Doe" Rule issued by Secretary of Human Services Margaret Heckler.1 Jane Doe was an infant born with congenital esophageal atresia and Down's syndrome. The child's parents and physician chose to defer surgical repair of the child's esophageal anomaly. The child's anomaly precluded provision of enteral nutrition. No parenteral nutrition was provided, and the child died 6 days later. Several months later, Secretary Heckler of the Department of Health and Human Services issued a directive stating that hospitals receiving federal funding must display on a sign a telephone number by which anonymous observers could report parents or physicians who were witholding medical treatment or food from defective newborns.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 572-573
Author(s):  
JAMES E. STRAIN

The specter of government intervention in the care of handicapped infants has reappeared in the form of a new "Baby Doe" regulation issued by the Department of Health and Human Services. If nothing else, the regulation has caused us to reexamine the process by which decisions are made in the care of the handicapped. The outcome of the Academy's discussions with DHHS has major implications, not just for pediatricians and the infants and children we care for but for people of all ages. It's possible, if not probable, that the same rules will apply to the care of the elderly, especially in regard to the withdrawal of life support treatment, if the Baby Doe rule goes into effect.


1997 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 288-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robyn S. Shapiro ◽  
John P. Klein ◽  
Kristen A. Tym

Over the past two decades ethics committees have proliferated in healthcare institutions across the country. Catalysts for this growth include the endorsement of ethics committees by the New Jersey Supreme Court in the Quinlan case, by the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical Research (“President's Commission”) in its report entitled Deciding to Forgo Life Sustaining Medical Treatment, by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in its 1985 “Baby Doe” regulations, by numerous other courts in treatment decisionmaking opinions issued after Quinlan, and more recently by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO).


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 95 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-455
Author(s):  
Frank Clark

I appreciate the opportunity to respond to Dr Frader's comments. In particular, I would like to address his third concern. The last thing I would want is to add any further confusion to this issue. First, Dr Frader correctly notes that the origins of the 1984 Federal Child Abuse Amendments (FCAA) are different than the various state child abuse and neglect reporting statutes. The FCAA were explicitly passed to provide the substantive legal foundation upon which the Department of Health and Human Services could issue replacement regulations for the original Baby Doe rules.1


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