Kathy, thanks for calling me up short on what you, probably, know more about
than I.

But your mention that Peter was the next baby to be born in Bloomington with
Down's Syndrome suggests to me that the parents of the babies in between --
presumably more or less healthy babies -- could not have decided to let their
babies die of starvation or dehydration without government intervention.   Is
that not so?

I think that societally we have a whole lot of ambivalence about how we treat
disabled people, and I hear the legislative swings back and forth, in this
story, as being about that ambivalence.   Indeed any kind of sick person
triggers a complicated calculus  -- maybe they would have let the parents
decline surgery for the T/E fistula even if the baby hadn't had Downs, I
don't know.

But I think that most people feel that affirmatively doing something that
endangers the kid is different from withholding treatment.  And the jury is
out what the relation of bf, or its lack, to potentially HIV babies really
is.

I didn't really mean to get into an argument about this generally -- it's a
bit off-topic anyway.  But my point was just that while parental rights to
decide this stuff are undeniably strong and important -- I'm happy to agree
that they are the MOST strong and important voice --  they just aren't the
ONLY voice that gets to speak about the child's welfare.   Nor should they be
the only voice, IMO.

Elisheva Urbas
Usually I'm going on about how every mom needs something different from us,
but this time I gotta come down with the collective, at least partially.

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