A couple in Penrith, New South Wales, the Suttons murdered their 28 year old son who was born with severe defects - “Matthew had intellectual disabilities, and had been born with no eyes and part of his face missing, but he could hear, and sound was his link to the outside world.” The story does not say whether he was mute as well but it is safe to assume so from the phrasing above.

From the story:

[Matthew] had suffered chronic, painful ear infections and needed an operation which would have made him deaf for three months, if not permanently.

Mrs Sutton told the inquest in July 2005 that she believed her son would have had no quality of life after the operation.

Rather than see their son deprived of his last remaining stimuli besides touch, they’d decided to end his life rather than to see him suffer, at least in their point of view anyway.

More at We killed Matthew: parents - National - smh.com.au

What would you do?

A couple of interesting questions are raised:

  1. if pre-natal checks reveal that your child has defects, would you abort it or strongly encourage your partner to abort it?
  2. if you view physical and mental completeness as the only way to live, would it tear at your heart if your child is “incomplete”?
  3. if due to unforeseen circumstances, like in Matthew’s case, that you would have to make a decision that will save your child’s life but disable him even further, would you do it?

My answers to the questions above:

  1. Yes.
  2. Yes.
  3. I don’t know.

#3 is particularly hard to answer. Also, if the child has a sound mind and had requested to be euthanised, it’d be very hard for me to refuse him. In Matthew’s case, he was also mentally disabled and his parents had presumably made the decision for him.

The law is clear in this case. Even if euthanisation was legal, Matthew never asked to be killed. So this is murder and it is wrong in the eyes of the law. But what about the parents’ compassion for their child? Is that wrong too? Or was it misguided compassion?

Be like “Gattaca”?

In the movie “Gattaca“, parents of the future can alter and modify the genes of their babies before they were born. If you had the means to do it, why not right? In the movie, two new classes of people were created: those who were perfected, and those who were born “natural”. Those who were perfected are guaranteed the best jobs and social positions.

If the technology is available now and you can afford it, would you do it if it meant that your child would not inherit your diseases and defects? And literally be a cut above the rest?

What about stem cells?

If you can abort a foetus simply because you know that it would be born with defects, what would your view be about harvesting aborted foetuses, or even creating foetuses to be destroyed for their stem cells?

The question then becomes “how do you value a life?” Afterall, pro-lifers would argue that a foetus is alive even though it has no conscience. If you can discard a foetus because it’s imperfect, then why not create foetuses for their stem cells that can help in the research to improve the length and quality of life for all mankind? No one is really harmed, and there’s everything to be gained isn’t it?

The Answer?

As you can see, I’ve posed a lot of questions here. The truth is: there are no easy answers. As medicine advances, these questions will pop up even more than they are now. As an individual, what would you do?

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