November 16, 2006 12:43 PM
Interview With Neonatologist Carlo Bellieni
SIENA, Italy, NOV. 14, 2006 (Zenit.org).- According to British press reports
the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecology has asked that doctors be
allowed to let seriously disabled newborns die.
Click here for the rest of the interview
The Royal College sent its request to the Nuffield Bioethics Council, the
body in charge of examining the ethical issues involved in the new
developments of biology and medicine. The latter, an influential private
commission, is about to publish a report on critical decisions in fetal and
neonatal medicine.
Opposition to the Royal College request has been expressed in the United
Kingdom by the British Council of Disabled People.
To better understand the issue and its implications of a bioethical nature,
ZENIT interviewed neonatologist Carlo Bellieni, director of the Neonatal
Intensive Therapy Department of the Le Scotte University Polyclinic of
Siena.
Q: What do you think of the request of the United Kingdom's Royal College of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists?
Bellieni: The request to do away with newborns with serious disabilities,
does not leave any pediatrician insensitive, namely, those who tomorrow will
be called to carry out the "eliminations."
But it is not new: Already in 2002 Michael Gross wrote in Bioethics that
there is "a general endorsement of neonaticide subject to a parent's
assessment of the newborn's interest broadly defined to consider physical
harm as well as social, psychological and or financial harm to related third
parties."
And it is always by the "interest of third parties" that one begins to
understand what might be hidden behind a pietistic intention "to put an end
to the child's sufferings."
Q: What are the most disturbing aspects of the British proposal?
Bellieni: Three things disturb pediatricians.
One, having to become executioners of a death sentence. We are not doctors
for this, especially at a time when the death sentence is stigmatized by an
increasing number of states.
Two, having to consider the patients themselves as non-persons. There are
authors who say that newborns are not persons because they still do not have
self-awareness, precisely a requirement for this sensation -- affirmations
amply denied by science and experience.
Three, having to consider the handicapped not as a life to help and respect
but, with a phobic attitude, as a second-tier life.
Q: Some British doctors have said that no one must be scandalized because a
late abortion is similar to active euthanasia. What is your opinion in this
respect?
Bellieni: I was not surprised by this news. I understand the horror but I do
not understand the astonishment.
Whoever has studied anatomy and biology, whoever is an expert in human
physiology, knows very well that there is no substantial difference between
the fetus and the newborn, other than small modifications in the blood
circle.
Therefore, one cannot understand why it's horrible to kill a newborn but not
to kill a fetus. Unless one believes that the filling of the lungs with air
has a "magic" effect, capable of transforming the DNA or the individual's
conscience!
The photo of the small dead fetus within the murdered mother, published a
few months ago by an Italian newspaper, made an impression not because a
corpse could be seen -- sadly we have also seen recently on TV and in
newspapers many dead children in war and no one has protested -- but because
the reality was shown: that a fetus is nothing other than a child that has
yet to enjoy the exterior air.
And, every mother knows that this is true, as any one knows whose job it is
to look after the very small fetuses that have come forth prematurely from
the maternal womb, called "premature children." Surgeons who operate on
fetuses that are still in the womb, also know this.
I repeat: The tragedy is that it surprises us, whereas a cultural endeavor
must be initiated, made up of research and serious writing, and not only of
"reactions" to the latest "transgression," to the latest horror.
The real bioethical effort of today is not to affirm a vague feeling of
mercy toward one's neighbor -- television programs are also full of tears --
but to look for the evidence, the reality; to affirm that an embryo is an
embryo and not just a cell, that a fetus of a few hundred grams feels pain,
that the DNA shows that every one's life begins at conception.
In short, it is like demonstrating that a flower is a flower and not a vase!
