The Defective Child Ethical Guidelines for Painful Dilemmas

The Surgeon General's regulations requiring treatment of defective newborns were criticized for being simplistic and for interfering in medical decision-making. This public policy regulation was at variance with many of the recommendations of the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine. Taking the President's Commission's report into consideration, this article proposes tentative guidelines for making difficult clinical decisions, which may form the basis of an institutional or a professional response to dilemmas surrounding the birth of a defective child.