Fundamental rights: Comments onMedical discrimination against children with disabilities, a report of the U.S. commission on civil rights, Washington, D.C.; 1989
✍ Scribed by H. Tristram Engelhardt
- Publisher
- Springer
- Year
- 1991
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 815 KB
- Volume
- 3
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0956-2737
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
At times the most well-meaning and intelligent of men and women, from the best of motives, come to see an issue in a distorted light. Frequently this is the result of circumstances that have skewed the process of data acquisition and interpretation. Unfortunately, this appears to be the case with regard to the report and recommendations concerning Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Child Abuse Amendments of 1984. The Report appears tohave been written under assumptions that are false and misguiding. The Report does not recognize that the difficulties of the early 80's (i.e., failure to treat those in need of treatment) are not the difficulties of today: the Report does not appreciate that a major shift in attitude has taken place, which makes further Infant Doe cases such as that of Bloomington, Ind., highly unlikely, but which has made child abuse through overtreatment more likely. Because of a failure to appreciate the range of harms to which seriously ill newborns may be exposed (especially the risk of useless and painful overtreatment), the Report erroneously suggests that the task is one of encouraging further overtreatment rather than making some judicious changes in the Child Abuse Amendments of 1984, so that they will not constitute a threat to the best interests of a significant class of very seriously ill newborns. Nor does the Report appreciate the kind of cooperation among parents, physicians, and child protective services agencies that will be necessary if our society is to adapt to an environment of rapidly changing hightechnology medicine. In what follows I respectfully submit some substantive criticisms of the December 1988 draft report and recommendations by the United States Commission on Civil Rights with respect to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Child Abuse Amendments of 1984. The central thrust of my remarks is that there is no evidence of significant undertreating of severely ill 63