Case Involving Dying Infant is Played Out in Real Time in Canadian Media, Troubling Ethicists
Apr 13th, 2009 • Posted in: NewsIs media frenzy proper given tragedy and gravity of the case?
TORONTO
A medical-ethics debate in Canada has highlighted some unsettling questions related to medical and journalistic ethics.
The incident centers on two babies, one dying of a congenital disease and another in need of a heart transplant, possibly from the dying baby, Kaylee Wallace.
According to a report from the Canadian Press, the incident was played out in real time on TV networks, news websites, and reported in detail in newspapers. The intensely public nature of the case concerned some ethicists, who told the press that they felt great unease about how the incidents unfolded.
“These are not the kinds of decisions that have to be taken in the newspapers,” Trudo Lemmens, a professor of health law and bioethics at the University of Toronto, told the Calgary Herald.
Ethicist Margaret Somerville also weighed in on the case in the Herald: “I guess one of the things you could ask is: Is having this media frenzy around this (case), is it a sufficient respect for that baby’s life and death?”
Chief among the ethics concerns, reports the Montreal Gazette, is the fact that the family of the dying donor infant became friendly with the family of the prospective recipient baby. Although the hospital insists that the planned recipient was at the top of the transplant list, reports the Gazette, the very public nature of the relationship between the families likely will raise “unfortunate doubts about the fairness of transplant systems.”
Late last week, the case was further complicated when Kaylee did not die as expected after doctors removed her life support. As this issue of Newsline went to press, she was breathing on her own and had a strong heartbeat, according to a report from the Toronto Star.
If Kaylee does survive, however, she faces a bleak long-term prognosis, and there was no immediate word whether another donor could be located for the infant in need of the heart transplant.
Sources: Montreal Gazette, Apr. 10 — National Post, Apr. 9 — Calgary Herald, Apr. 9 — Canadian Press, Apr. 9.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Jan. 12 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 22, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 25, 2008 — Related Newsline story, June 30, 2008 — Related Newsline story, June 16, 2008.
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