No Matter How Short Their Lives, They Had Meaning

If these babies had been born in the U.S., efforts might have been made to save them, especially the baby who weighed 450 grams (almost a pound). In one recent year (2010) ten babies weighing less than a pound were born in the U.S. and survived. USA Today carried a story in December 2011 about preemie survival that included this information:

The smallest surviving baby born weighing 9.2 ounces is now a healthy 7-year-old and another who weighed 9.9 ounces at birth is an honors college student studying psychology. Their progress was detailed in a study published this week in the journal Pediatrics by doctors at Loyola University Medical Center in Illinois where the girls were born.

In the U.K. preemies less than 22 weeks are not treated which resulted in a bizarre situation at one hospital where a baby born two days earlier in gestation than the "approved" date was left to die over the mother's pleas for medical assistance. Had the birth been delayed only 48 hours the baby would have been treated. One wonders if the situations in both the U.K. and Canada are based on their socialized medicine policies. These little ones just aren't worth treating.

I fear this outcome is coming in the U.S. as Obamacare is fully implemented. There will not only be death panels for the elderly, but probably death panels for the young as well. A baby doesn't weigh enough? Into the trash bin. So sad. Artificial wombs are on the horizon, but I wonder if they will primarily be used for technological atrocities like altering the cells of men so homosexual couples can have biological children who are then "nurtured" in a machine. It's not science fiction any more and the possibilities are horrifying!