Try these shoes on for a while

Robert Latimer is back in the news. He was up for parole this week after spending the last 15 years in prison.

There has been some discussion of this issue at SDA and Halls of macadamia, two blogs which I frequent.

I wanted to give a bit of perspective on this issue from someone who may be facing it in the future. My own opinion of Mr. Latimer is that while I don't condone what he did, I can understand the circumstances. He has more than paid his debt to society and should be released.

A lot of the comments I have read on this issue come from people that I think have not examined the situation.

Try this.

Look at your child. Bring up all the feelings you have for that child. All the love, the desire to protect, the feeling that you would do anything for that child. Now, imagine that when that child was 3 months old, you were told that, not due to anything that anyone did, through no fault of your own, it just being "one of those things", your child was severely brain damaged. Although that is not exactly true. The truth being that she does not have much of a brain to damage. In fact, you figure her brain is about 25% of her twin sister (the doctors don't tell you this, it is your estimate, based on the fact that her head is noticeably smaller than her sister and you saw the scans of her brain, and there was significantly more black areas (areas of nothing, just fluid), than white areas).

At your pediatrician's you ask how long she is expected to live. He says 5 years, 10, maybe 20, maybe more, we just don't know. However, he will tell you that he he has never seen a baby with this much damage survive (the doctor is in his sixties and has probably been practicing for over 40 years. He is well known throughout the city and is respected as a good doctor). He then suggests that you may want to consider how much you want to treat her when she gets sick. He tiptoes around the point by stating that in most of these cases, the baby gets pneumonia from fluid in the lungs and most parents deny extreme measures (ie antibiotics. (when did antibiotics become extreme?)) and after a few bouts of pneumonia, probably over a number of years, the patient dies.

Your wife drives home because you can't stop crying. And I mean crying, like uncontrollable sobs, while the words, "how can I make a decision to let my baby die" run over and over through you mind.

Fast forward one year. Your daughter is not in pain, but it is a struggle to get enough of the food she needs through the tube in her stomach. She throws up at least once a day, and you have spent the last year changing her feeding habits, formula, time and the rate in an effort to minimize it. When not asleep, she sounds as if she is fighting to breathe and not to choke. You have an appointment next week where you will discuss what to do about the fact that her muscle contractions are starting to force one hip out of alignment and she will probably dislocate it soon. Her spine is severely curved, even for a baby so young. At least she doesn't have seizures (they think she does not have enough brain matter to have them).

class or girl Now consider that, with such little brain matter, she is not going to get better. Her quality of life will not improve past that of a month old baby. She will never walk, talk, or feed herself. She will likely never reach for anything voluntarily, to form a desire to do something and then do it. She will never be able to say I love you daddy. You are not even sure what she can see or hear, although she does seem to, at times, turn towards the sound of your voice. You decide that you will take that as a sign that she knows that you are her dad and you will hold that as tight as you can.

However, you cannot live in a fantasy world all the time. You have to fact the facts. No amount of physical therapy, visual therapy, stimulation or anything is going to improve her quality of life, even though you do all of them. What else can you do? She is your child. Now, imagine forward ten or eleven years from now. The curved spine and hip are not going to get better. All they can do is slow the rate at which they progress. What will her hip and spine be like in then, if she is even alive? How much pain will she be in? What will her quality of life be like. Remember also that you have other children. You want their live to be as normal as possible. Do you want your other child to miss out on ballet and girl guides because of her sister? Do you want them to begin to resent their sister? What if your disabled daughter outlives you? She is your child, it is your duty to care for her, but do you really want to burden her sister with that when you die?

Welcome to my world.

Try putting yourself in Mr. Latimer's shoes before you condemn him.