House Bill 233 is not about abortion. It is about end-of-life care. It is about the most heartbreaking, devastating hours that parents experience, when their infant has mere hours or days to live.
If a child were dying at the age of 1, 5, or even 6 months, we would entirely trust the parents, in consultation with their doctor, to make the best decision regarding compassionate care for their child. No politician would dare insert their own judgment into that situation. And yet, House Bill 233 says parents and doctors cannot be trusted in such an end-of-life decision merely because of when this tragedy is happening, immediately after birth.
Anyone who has had to make the impossible decision of when to take a loved one off life support, or if to put them on life support, knows how excruciating those decisions are, and knows how there is no one-size-fits-all decision for all end-of-life scenarios.
This is why we allow people to sign “do not resuscitate” orders and why so many of us have had conversations with our loved ones about what type of medical care we would want at the end. I’ve had these conversations with both my parents, and even with some of my siblings. We don’t want to be hooked up to machines and kept alive only by the mercy of mechanics.
As adults we have the legal power to sign DNRs and the opportunity to have these conversations with family and friends. An infant has no such opportunity, which is why we trust parents to make these heart-wrenching decisions about end-of-life care for newborns.
There is no right decision when an infant is born with no chance of survival. The only right decision in that instance is the decision that the parents make for their infant, in consultation with their doctor and in line with their faith.
HB 233 could deny parents the ability to choose the type of compassionate care that works for their family and their faith in these situations, as we would allow them to do at any other point in their child’s life. Instead, the bill could force parents to spend what little time they have with their infant, watching them be hooked up to machines and subjected to medical procedures that at most will buy a few more hours.
HB 233 requires doctors to apply medical care to “preserve the life and health of the born alive infant,” which could include preserving the life for a few minutes or maybe an hour. There are and will be cases where medical procedures could give an infant an extra hour or day to live, but at what cost?
Is the government so interested in those couple of hours that it would revoke decision-making power from parents and force doctors to hook an infant up to machines even against the wishes of the parents? How does the government’s interest in those extra hours or maybe day outweigh the grief and pain the government’s order imposes on the family?
Like a family’s decision about when to end life support, the decision about how to treat an infant, including whether to put them on life support, should be left to that infant’s parents, their faith, and their doctor.
It was disheartening to endure the hearing on HB 233 and even more to listen to the floor debate. The narratives given in support of this bill give the impression that there are parents and doctors out there willfully committing infanticide. Not only is this completely inaccurate, it is dangerous to even imply. HB 233 is based on misinformation. Full stop. It is insulting to the doctors in our state who do everything they can to help their patients, even in impossible situations.
It is irresponsible to point to a single doctor who has rightfully been convicted of murder in another state as reason why doctors and parents cannot be trusted in the Granite State.
If this bill becomes law, rather than relying on their training and expertise to care for a dying infant, doctors would have to take direction from politicians to avoid criminal liability.
End-of-life decisions are hard, and legislation like this does nothing to help families or doctors. The House recklessly passed this dangerous legislation. All eyes now turn to the Senate and to the governor. I hope that compassion can prevail and HB 233 will be defeated. Parents and doctors in this state deserve better than this witch hunt.
(Jeanne Hruska is the political director of ACLU-NH.)