Rodriguez, Ma. Arnelle P.

Case Study:

1. Was the parent’s decision correct?

- For me, what the parents did was right. Because that's what they want for their child. it is
difficult for a parent to make a decision when the child is in danger or is dying.
2. What are the facts of the baby jane doe case?
 Her real name is Keri Lynn aka “Baby Jane Doe”
 She has serious mental and physical impairments
 She lives on Long Island, New York
 She was born with spina bifida
 The court found that the decision of Baby Doe’s parents was acceptable because the treatment
will not lead about child’s death.
 The court determined that the decision made by Baby Doe’s parents was in the best interest of
their child.
3. If you were the parents, what was your dilemma?
- If I were her parents, the dilemma is you need to choose whether to continue the said surgery
or not. We do not know if ever the surgery had been done it would less her disability or not.
Because as parents, it is difficult for us to make decisions, especially when it comes to our child.
For us as parents she healed and became normal. Experience being normal and not being
ridiculed by other people. So we parents are looking for other opinions on what is the right thing
to do and for the operation to be successful for our child. Because for us the safety of our child
is the most important and that is what we will follow.
4. Who are the two stakeholders contesting the parents decision? What was the value behind their
position? What would be your decision?
- The stakeholders in this case are Baby Jane Doe, baby’s guardians, the specialists and other
interested people as the lawyers who battled for her rights. The parents and a few of the
specialists centered on the benefits contention which more or less expressed that since Baby
Doe would not have profited from the surgery and the fetched and assets it would involve to
care for such a disabled was not worth it. Other specialists and the lawyers who battled for her
would have centered on the proper to life standards/ the sanctity of human life, the proper to
be treated with nobility and the reality that Baby Doe life might have been expanded as a result
of the surgery indeed in spite of the fact that she would have been in a wheel chair for the rest
of her life. I think that the contention where the child life might have been amplified once
surgery was done, the rule of the sacredness of human life and the reality that crippled children
ought to not be segregated against and the reality of the circumstance where we may open
entryways to choose who ought to live or kick the bucket is as well much of an elusive incline
contention which conspicuously stand out and exceed the other reasons which have been
displayed and as such the foremost fitting thing which ought to have been done was to have the
surgery done.