"Are there lives that have forfeited their individual legal protection because their continued existence has permanently lost all value for the person himself, and for society as well? Simply posing this question brings up an uneasy feeling in anyone who has become accustomed to evaluating the value of a particular life to both the individual concerned and to society.... If one simultaneously thinks about a battlefield covered with thousands of dead young men, or a mine where a violent thunderstorm has buried alive hundreds of diligent workers, and compares it to an institution for imbeciles with its care for its living inmates, one is deeply shocked by the blatant dissonance between the sacrifice of the greatest treasure of humankind on one hand, and on the other, the greatest care being given to existences that are not only absolutely worthless, but that drag other worthy beings down negative existences ..." (page 27)
I did a little research on the book you quoted. This book was published in 1920 at the start of the Nazi theories being invented. Their reference to a life unworthy of being lived is an early theology of killing not understanding the life of what a vegetable has. It is a general call for destruction, not determining quality of life.
I still say the actions should be the responsibilities of the parents, not the government. The same thing was in the ACA, and I was voraciously against that. Obama even made a statement on preparation of hospice and the loss of life in a town hall meeting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rin4h4cRs6Y
So, I do not agree with the government stepping in to decide, or have anything to say, about the life and death of a person, or further treatment available they can’t provide. It is up to the parents. So, if you give the child the treatment, which I have no problem with, and it doesn’t work, or it doesn’t repair the injuries to the child’s brain, what do you actually have. In my mind, a soul trapped in a dying body. I wouldn’t want to be that way.
rwood