1993, Falls Church, VA Fairfax Hospital

Baby K, as she came to be known, was born with a severe neurological condition known as anencephaly. In affect, she was born with both cerebral hemispheres missing from her brain, which means that her greatest potential would be shy of ever producing a single, fundamental thought. Her mother, insisted that Fairfax Hospital provide Baby K whatever treatment was necessary to keep her alive as long as possible, as most anencephaly cases failed to survive for more than a few hours, days or weeks at best. Fairfax, in Falls Church, VA provided the standard treatment for Baby K’s condition and obliged her mother’s insistence for aggressive respiratory treatment when needed. The cause of death can commonly be linked to the fact that the single brain stem cannot support normal respiratory functioning. The hospital staff did what they could to keep Baby K and her mother as happy as possible and awaited the infant’s unavoidable death.

But Baby K proved to be a survivor. At sixteen months she was stable at an extended care facility that provided her constant attention and total care. The hospital was still obliged to provide the respiratory treatment needed for her survival, at her mother’s continual insistence, although the physicians believed that further respiratory intervention would be futile. Eventually, Fairfax sought a ruling from the federal district court that would allow them to refuse the aggressive respiratory treatment that kept Baby K alive.

Although their case was overturned in court, Fairfax appealed the decision at the U.S. Court of Appeals. Again their position that Baby K’s quality of life was not sufficient to mandate the treatments she was receiving, was not supported due to the 1986 Federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. This law required hospitals to provide the type of treatment that Baby K needed as long as she needed it.

1976, Midwestern Hospital

Baby Owens was born at 11:30 pm to Dr. Owens and her husband, Philip at Midwestern Hospital. The proud parents didn’t remain proud very long as their first meeting with the child showed that something was terribly wrong. The baby’s misshapen head and aloof look in those strangely shaped eyes had all the earmarks of Down syndrome and neither Dr. Owen nor her husband were prepared to accept a baby of such shortcomings into their home, their family or their lives. They verbally announced their feelings to the staff that had taken care of Dr. Owen during the birth and any attempt to console them was futile. Their minds were made up.

To add insult to injury, Baby Owens was hiding a deeper secret. She was born with a sealed patch in her small intestine, also known as duodenal atresia. Although the condition is lethal if left untreated, as the baby would not be able to eat, a relatively minor surgical intervention could correct the problem and Baby Owens would grow into a normal healthy child, at least as normal and healthy as a Down baby can be. In all honesty, the physicians had no way to determine the extent of Baby Owens’ mental retardation, but it made no difference to the Owens’s, severe or mild, their baby would be ultimately retarded and that was one condition they just could not accept.

Dr. Owens informed Dr. Ziner, her attending physician, that she and her husband would not authorize the surgery needed to save Baby Owens’ life. According to Dr. Owens, "It wouldn’t be fair to the other children to raise them with a mongoloid. It would take all of our time, and we wouldn’t be able to give David, Sean and Melinda the love and attention they need." (Munson, Intervention and Reflection – 144) Despite Dr. Ziner’s objections, Dr. Owens remained firm in her and her husband’s decision to allow Baby Owen to die of starvation by denying her the life-saving surgery.

The hospital’s legal and medical representative got together to discuss their position on the matter. What action, if any, should they take to prevent the death of an otherwise physically health child? In previous matters when a parent’s religious belief conflicted with a necessary surgery on a child, the hospital had received court orders mandating the surgery, regardless of the parents’ wishes. But was this case different? Was the fact that the baby was mentally handicapped a spin that would allow her death? The hospital decided that they had no reason to force the parents to authorize the operation and subsequently, be forced to take home a baby that they didn’t want. The official position of Midwestern Hospital was that they could not perform an operation on an infant without parental consent.