> Who gets to decide the official measure of a > "defect"? Heart problems? Deformed limbs? > Nearsighted eyes?
IMHO this is quite clear. A severely handicaped child is one that can't live without continuous high-effort medical aid, and even then has a severely reduced live expectation. A hundret years ago, the worst of those childs (after they died) where shown (conserved) in curiousity cabinets as "monsters". Today, we can keep them alive for years.
It's not a matter of evolution* - these poor creatures can't breed anyway. I think it's more a matter of luxury - can you afford it to keep someone alive? Normal childs can be kept alive by giving them to eat and drink, a worm place to sleep, and intellectual challange and social contact to learn.
And since resources are limited, you really should think about the luxury to keep a severely handicapped child alive some years for a million dollars. You could probably spent the money better by donating a $5/child vaczine to the third world and save hundrets, if not thousands of lives.
There are a lot of serious questions with high-tech medicine. Is it ok to lengthen one's live by painful 6 weeks for $100k, which is a typical statistic for some sort of cancer operations, or is that just a lot of money wasted and even denying a death in peace? Or is it ok to give them poison (or illegal drugs) instead so that they can die without pain?
This isn't just about money, it's also about live quality. You can't ask non-concious people, but sometimes, you can ask concious. I once worked in a hospital (instead of military service), and we had a 86 year old woman, who had a very serious disease - she was operated every second day for over a month, and to our all surprise, she actually survived that. Some months later, still bound to bed (with little hope to recover much more), she asked us why we didn't let her die. Sometimes, suffering is worse than death.
*) ordinary, cheap medicine matters to evolution. It keeps people healthy and attractive who aren't really that strong.
Slashdot Mirror
> Who gets to decide the official measure of a
> "defect"? Heart problems? Deformed limbs?
> Nearsighted eyes?
IMHO this is quite clear. A severely handicaped child is one that can't live without continuous high-effort medical aid, and even then has a severely reduced live expectation. A hundret years ago, the worst of those childs (after they died) where shown (conserved) in curiousity cabinets as "monsters". Today, we can keep them alive for years.
It's not a matter of evolution* - these poor creatures can't breed anyway. I think it's more a matter of luxury - can you afford it to keep someone alive? Normal childs can be kept alive by giving them to eat and drink, a worm place to sleep, and intellectual challange and social contact to learn.
And since resources are limited, you really should think about the luxury to keep a severely handicapped child alive some years for a million dollars. You could probably spent the money better by donating a $5/child vaczine to the third world and save hundrets, if not thousands of lives.
There are a lot of serious questions with high-tech medicine. Is it ok to lengthen one's live by painful 6 weeks for $100k, which is a typical statistic for some sort of cancer operations, or is that just a lot of money wasted and even denying a death in peace? Or is it ok to give them poison (or illegal drugs) instead so that they can die without pain?
This isn't just about money, it's also about live quality. You can't ask non-concious people, but sometimes, you can ask concious. I once worked in a hospital (instead of military service), and we had a 86 year old woman, who had a very serious disease - she was operated every second day for over a month, and to our all surprise, she actually survived that. Some months later, still bound to bed (with little hope to recover much more), she asked us why we didn't let her die. Sometimes, suffering is worse than death.
*) ordinary, cheap medicine matters to evolution. It keeps people healthy and attractive who aren't really that strong.