Posted on 02/27/2010 12:08:46 PM PST by wagglebee
WINNIPEG, Manitoba, February 25, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Canadian doctor has stated in an editorial in the Winnipeg Free Press that the controversy surrounding the fate of Baby Isaiah May is ignoring the fundamental issue at stake - the status of the child as a human being.
Dr. Joel B. Zivot, an associate professor in the department of anesthesiology, University of Manitoba, and the director of the intensive care unit, cardiac sciences program, at St. Boniface General Hospital in Winnipeg, said, "What has been reported is information that misdirects the public from the fundamental issues.
"Although the issue before the court is the degree of brain injury incurred by Isaiah, I realize that it is Isaiah's status as a human being that is on trial."
Isaiah was born in the Rocky Mountain House Hospital after a difficult 40-hour delivery. On Oct. 24th, the boy was airlifted to Edmonton's Stollery Children's Hospital because Isaiah's umbilical cord had been wrapped around his neck, resulting in severe oxygen deprivation. He was then placed on a ventilator in the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit.
The hospital declared Isaiah “brain dead” shortly thereafter and clinical director Dr. Ernest Z. Phillipos informed the parents of his decision to take Isaiah off the ventilator.
The parents, Isaac and Rebecka May, took the hospital and Alberta Health Services to court, seeking a 90-day injunction against the order.
On January 27, Edmonton Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Michelle Crighton ruled that Isaiah should remain on life support until February 19th for further assessment by medical experts.
Last Friday Justice Crighton again decided to give the parents of the infant more time to assemble medical experts to review their son's condition, who against all odds seems to be thriving.
"He's doing very well. There hasn't been very many improvements over the past few weeks but he's still growing. He's over 12 pounds and he just looks like a perfect little boy," Isaiah's father Isaac told reporters.
Dr. Zivot said his own inquiry into Isaiah's case has confirmed the parents' assessment of their son's condition and chances for life, but has also raised the question of the moral obligation Isaiah's doctors have toward his care.
"In my investigation of Isaiah, I learned that he had gained weight, moved and breathed occasionally on his own. His photos displayed an infant who by all accounts seemed normal in appearance apart from some paraphernalia of the critical care trade," Dr. Zivot observed.
"In contemporary thought," Dr. Zivot continued, "once born, humanity is considered automatic and should not be revoked by disability. The yardstick of being a human being is set too high for Isaiah. Discussion on the prediction of degree of disability, including mental capacity, is not relevant as are counter-arguments based on the physical appearance of normalcy."
"All that really matters, to be blunt, is if Isaiah is dead or alive."
Contact Information:
Gene Zwozdesky, Alberta Minister of Health
208 Legislature Building
10800 - 97 Avenue
Edmonton, AB T5K 2B6
Phone: 780 427-3665
Fax: 780 415-0961
E-mail: health.minister@gov.ab.ca
Stollery Children's Hospital
8440 112 Street Northwest
Edmonton, AB T6G 2B7
General Phone Line: (780) 407-8822
Alberta Health Services - Complaints
Mail Slot 57
11111 Jasper Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta T5K 0L4
Toll-free: 1-877-753-2170
Telephone: 780-342-8080
Fax: 1-877-871-4340
Dr. Ernest Z. Phillipos, Director of Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
Stollery Children's Hospital
Phone: 780-407-1305
Fax: 780-407-3030
E-mail: ernest.phillipos@albertahealthservices.ca
Office of Premier Ed Stelmach
Room 307, Legislature Building
10800 - 97th Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta
T5K 2B6
Phone: (780) 427 2251
Fax: (780) 427 1349
E-mail: premier@gov.ab.ca
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Baby Isaiah’s Case Part of a National Trend Say Advocates for the Disabled
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jan/10012009.html
Young Canadian Parents Fighting Hospital to Save Their Baby's Life
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jan/10011910.html
Absolutely. Birth does not confer humanity. Conception does.
“Does a right to life include a right to demand public (or private insurance) resources to artificially sustain that life?”
You MAY have a point if the child wasn’t improving. Sometimes being on a vent for a while is medical TREATMENT and not just artifical sustaining of life. A family in our church is going through this right now. Their baby would have died without the vent but with the vent he continued to improve until they were able to take him off completely.
If someone is basically dead and the machines are artifically sustaining life it is one thing. If the machines are needed until the body can heal it is quite another.
What the doctor said didn’t make sense at first and it didn’t seem like he was on the babies side.
However, I did miss the *once born* part.
Excellent post!
Yeah that did need a little clarification. Maybe ghe could have said “Some people are dopes and think that if you have a disability or you aren’t born yet you don’t deserve to be called human”. That seems clear. :)
Thank you. I do try! :)
I've actually seen such things said by FReepers, especially when Terri was being murdered.
I wasn’t on here then but I have seen it since I joined. Unreal!
It was sickening.
I remember the Terri threads. People insisted on repeating the lie that she was on life support. She wasn’t. She was concious and breathing on her own. She was not brain dead. If she had been given the proper care and therapy that her evil husband denied her, she probably could have lived a long happy life.
Terri’s life expectancy was another thirty years. In the beginning her “husband” wanted her dead so he could have her money (and quite possibly to cover up a crime), later he was driven by pure hatred.
The idea that a husband who abandoned his wife and started a family with another woman was allowed to decide her fate was sickening.
Remember this little boy in our prayers, as a Canadian I detest our medical system, and would love to see it fall. This is another reason why.
God bless this little boy and his family and show the courts and doctors that miracles still happen.
We knew someone in a similar situation, only the baby didn’t make it.
But in the early days, just after the baby was born, the doctors wouldn’t commit to anything as far as what the baby’s chances were. They said that newborns are VERY resilient and can handle levels of oxygen deprivation that would kill anyone even a few weeks older.
They waited to see what was happening and did EVERYTHING they could to save her. She died in spite of it all.
They did everything they could to save her, and that’s what makes a big difference between people that love a child making decisions for them or some government employee doing it instead.
That little child is with God now, and one day they’ll be re-united.
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