Deeply Religious Parents Often Reluctant to Cease Medical Care

[rug]

By LIZ NEPORENT, ABC News Medical Unit

Aug. 14, 2012

Arthur Caplan, the head of the division of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center, recalls a case of a man who had beaten his six-month-old child to death. It was a horror the mother simply could not accept.

A deeply religious woman, she pushed the doctors to do more, telling them that God would intervene and allow her daughter to make a miraculous recovery. For several hours there was a tense standoff between caregivers and parent.

She finally allowed the child to come off life support when Caplan told her, "God may bring you a miracle but your baby does not have to be attached to a machine for this happen."

When a child is seriously ill or injured, parents understandably move heaven and earth to save them. However, a new study has found that sometimes deeply religious families test the limits of medical science by asking doctors to go to extremes to prolong life.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/religious-parents-dying-kids/story?id=16997949

[rfranklin]

1. I guess their faith in the Lord is not that strong after all...

otherwise they wouldn't ask for scientific intervention.

[rug]

2. Read the article.

You are missing something of significance.

[cbayer]

3. That sample size on this study is very, very small and I am not sure it is statistically significant

There are lots of reasons why parents may or may not have trouble letting go. A subset of just 11 out of 203 is not just enough to draw definitive conclusions, imo.

At any rate, I agree with the article that health professionals should "try to honor their beliefs as long as there is no undue harm to the patient" and I think that is generally what goes on.