Reply to Steve Bainbridge

Steve, I have a question for you--and for anyone else who may be able to answer.  The question ("Am I missing something?") is near the end of this post.

This is the language that Steve calls to our attention in his post yesterday:

A parent's role is limited under the protocol.  While experts and critics familiar with the policy said a parent's wishes to let a child live or die naturally most likely would be considered, they note that the decision must be professional, so rests with doctors.

When I read this language, I assumed it meant that the law should not be construed to require the doctors to honor the parents' wishes that their terminally ill child be sedated out of his or her unbearable misery.  The doctors may, after their own deliberation, refuse to honor the parents' wishes that they--the doctors-- do so.

Steve suggests that according to the law, the doctors may decide to sedate the terminally ill child out of his/her unbearable misery even if the parents object to the doctors' doing so.  If Steve is right about this, then I agree that the law is outrageous for that reason alone, whether or not it is outrageous for any other reason.  But is Steve right about this?  I would appreciate any relevant information.

In any event ...

Let's assume, for the sake of discussion, that a law makes it clear that doctors may, if after appropriate deliberation they decide to do so,  cooperate with parents in the scenario I suggested in my post.  If I'm right about the implications of the the Doctrine of Double Effect, then the parents' decision is morally permissible--that is, morally permissible according to orthodox Roman Catholic moral theology.  (Steve:  Nothing in Evangelium Vitae or in the Catechism calls into question the DDE.)  And if their decision is morally permissible, then there is no reason doubt that the doctors' cooperation with the parents is morally permissible too.

So:  Am I right about the implications of the DDE?

Here is what I said in my earlier post:

Wouldn't the Doctrine of Double Effect permit parents to authorize the administration of a sedative (e.g., morphine) to their child in order to relieve the child's unbearable pain--even, if necessary to relieve the pain, to the point where the child's respiratory system is depressed and the child dies . . . so long as the parents do not intend the death of the child but only the relief of the child's unbearable pain?  Of course, the proportionality test (which is the second part of the DDE) would not be met if the child's condition were not terminal.  But if the child's condition is terminal--if the child will die within the week--then wouldn't the proportionality test be met?

Again:  Am I missing something?  I would appreciate any comments you might have about this situation.  Steve?  Anyone?

One more thing, Steve:  A reader of your blog, where you X-posted your December 4th post, might think that I am trying to justify infant euthanasia.  I am not.  To administer the sedative with the intent to kill would be engage in an act of euthanasia.  I am not trying to justify any parent's doing that.  Crucial to my application of the DDE is that the parents are NOT acting with the intent to kill their child.  (Moreover, I am seeking feedback about WHETHER my application of the DDE is correct.  I thought this blog was in part about discussion.)

Since I may want to run for the presidency of the United State some day, I hope you will make it clear to your blog's readers that I am an apologist neither for infant euthanasia nor for Nazi doctors!