Abstract

KIE: The federal government's revised "Baby Doe" regulations are viewed as a "political ploy" rather than as a serious attempt to prevent occasional instances of neglect of defective newborns. Annas charges that the regulations subvert the traditional role of the hospital as a haven for abused children by casting the physician as a potential abuser and the nurse as an informant. He rejects reliance on hastily constituted ethics committees to provide solutions and supports the development of socially accepted principles that should then be used to govern decisions in individual cases.