Treatment of seriously ill and handicapped newborns.

Medical technology makes it increasingly possible to prolong life, sometimes indefinitely in the face of overwhelming disability or suffering; thus, choices must be made whether to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment. Reasonable people disagree about who should make such decisions when the patient is an infant, and what principles or rules should guide them. The article briefly reviews the recent history of this controversy analyzes the major ethical substantive principles that have been proposed to guide conduct, and presents the arguments for a procedural approach that is now attracting interest.