One of my children had the umbilical cord wrapped tightly around his neck when he was born. Did God sentence him to die and was it wrong for the hospital to "keep him alive" by removing the cord from his neck?
Where do you draw the line?
Oh please. Are you truly unable to differentiate between unwrapping the umbilical cord and the continued application of an artificial breathing apparatus?
Just in case you can't, here's an important distinction: the removal of the cord is an act that is finite in duration with permanent positive consequences. In contrast, the child mentioned here will die without the continued, permanent application of artificial life support.
I think that there is a little more to this story. There was a thread here a day or day about it. IIRC, the child's disease doesn't allow for the lungs and ribcage to grow, so as the rest of the body grows, the lung capacity doesn't keep up with the need for oxygen. It seems that the child will slowly suffocate, even with a ventilator. I'll have to go look it up for sure. I can't rely on my memory here.
Found the thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1345350/posts?page=25
From the article:
"Texas Children's Hospital officials said Sun was born with a fatal genetic defect known as skeletal dysplasia that will not allow his chest cavity and lungs to grow. Sun is slowly suffocating to death because his lungs lack the capacity to support his body, according to hospital officials."
Spiff---just so you know my daughter's umbilical cord was constricted as well, necessitating a quick forceps delivery. So I certainly identify with your example :) But I do think that the difference between our situations and this child are quite significant.
One of my children had the umbilical cord wrapped tightly around his neck when he was born. Did God sentence him to die and was it wrong for the hospital to "keep him alive" by removing the cord from his neck?
Where do you draw the line?
You draw the line at what you can fix.
Your Child was fixed once the cord was untangled. If it had required someone to hold the uncut cord away from his neck 24/7 for as long as he was to live, that would have been unreasonable.
Nothing could keep this condition from killing this child. All that could have been done was to pour vast ammounts of public money into staving off death for a few years and that is unreasonable.