Comment: Response to “On the Grounds of Parental Consent in Determining the Treatment of Defective Newborns”

Abstract

Professor Donchin has presented an excellent discussion of some of the issues involved in the area of parental consent for defective newborn infants. Yet she has provided us no final decision on what one is to do at 3:00 in the morning in the newborn intensive care unit when a decision is required in the next 60 minutes. I, too, have no solid answers to this problem but I would like to present two sets of comments. First I would make some remarks regarding the five issues presented by Professor Donchin regarding parents as decision-makers; then I would like to point out some of the advantages and problems relative to each group of potential decision-makers; and finally, I’ll present a pragmatic solution.