A French judge has ruled that a hospital in Orange, France was guilty of “unreasonable obstinacy” in its efforts to save a newborns life.
The verdict is over the birth of a child in December 2002. According to LifeSiteNews.com, the baby’s heartbeat failed during delivery and after twenty-five minutes of resuscitation efforts, the doctor informed parents the child was dead. Staff, however, continued to work on the baby, soon reviving a heartbeat. Due to trauma from the aggressive efforts used to save the baby’s life, the child now suffers from severe mental and physical disabilities.
The parents brought the case to court, seeking 500,000 euros in damages.
The Judge ruled in the parents’ favor, stating, “By acting this way without taking into account the highly probable harmful consequences for the child, the doctors demonstrated unreasonable obstinacy … that constituted a medical error of a nature which engages the responsibility of the Orange hospital.”
The ruling, unprecedented in France, poses a very real threat to the life of all children born with disabilities as it imposes consideration of quality of life on medical professionals in those moments when they should focus on nothing but the continuation of life. Once quality of life becomes the greatest factor in life and death decisions, the vulnerable and disabled become subject to the dictates of those appointed to judge what a quality life entails.
As Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director of Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, said in relation to the case, “If someone is alive, it should simply be deemed that their life is worthy of life, and we should not be judging that life as having value or somehow being a life that should not have happened. Being alive should be enough.”