Relationships help make life worth living

The concise argument

“…Nelson suggests this as a note of caution to those thinking of applying these results to clinical practice, healthcare policy and law. Wightman et al 6 highlight that the lack of diversity in the survey sample, with 92% of participants reported as white, is a particular problem for this topic area, where minority views may differ significantly from those of the majority. The use of empirical research in bioethics has been increasing over the last 20 years and there have been a number of recent papers addressing methodological standards7 and how quality in empirical ethics might be assessed 8.…”

The relational threshold: a life that is valued, or a life of value?

“…In this brief response, we are going to address head-on the important ethical question raised within our survey – when life is worth living for an infant. We follow-up on the suggestion of two commentators that the presence or absence of “relational potential” might be ethically important to report in studies of the outcome of severely impaired infants,3 and to whether parental requests for treatment should be supported 4…”

“…But what level of function is sufficient to ground relational potential? Wightman et al in their commentary4 cite a recently published account of an “expanded relational potential standard”. This expanded account, drawing on care ethics, recognises that parents may establish caring relationships even if that relationship is largely or entirely one-sided, and the “the child has limited or no capacity to reciprocate” 7…”