One of the saddest things I've ever seen....

I was climbing through the web of interconnected videos on Youtube a couple of days ago and came across a video from the Child Foundation about the horrendously deformed Samoan baby born a few months back. The video of the baby is horrific to watch. I was left thinking "Oh.....my....God...." and I'm not religious in any way, shape or form. The father was lauded as courageous for sneaking in to feed the infant after medical staff had refused it sustenance and advised that it was unlikely to survive. If anything, the video confirmed for me they were right.

Then I looked at the comment. Thousand of comments. This video has, at writing, been viewed 746,434 times. A huge proportion of the comments are of the "What was the father THINKING!" variety. I left one or two myself.

People pointed out that money that would be spent on this child could have helped a much larger number of less seriously deformed children. People said that the life of that child would be so limited as to be meaningless. People said that even with the life-threatening defects aside (spina bifida, skull with no top, seriously deformed spine with meninges protruding...and more), if the baby could be surgically altered to look more "normal", the years of pain required would be many and long....and pointless if the baby can't think. People said helping the baby to live was far more cruel than letting it go. People said a lot of much more cruel things, too.

I have to say, I agree with all of that (but for the harsh words and abuse directed at the family by some commentators). As a parent, I can understand wanting to rescue your newborn child from death. But it would be to save an idealised child a new parent imagined....not the sad, wee, warm, broken thing revealed in this video. I would not have saved this baby.

You might disagree and I can understand perfectly valid reasons for making that decision. They are almost enough to make me agree. Then I watch this video. No.

The latest news is that the baby has had major surgery and survived. More surgery is scheduled.

Have a look at this video. See if you think a "life" was saved when it's over.