Meaning of Life - Harsh Look at Saving a 1-LB. Baby
by Linda Stasi, TV Critic
New York Post, May 12, 2006
It used to be easy with babies. Nature vs. nurture, with nature often winning
out. Now with extraordinary medical means, children born with severe deformitities
or the inability to survive on their own are often kept alive - some to
thrive, others to hang-on through countless surgeries, repeated dashes to
ERs and hundreds of days of hospitalization.
Documentary filmmaker Nicole Conn explores the issues of how far parents
should go to keep a child alive - and when, if ever, extraordinary care
becomes extraordinarily over the top care.
Without knowing the horror and trauma that was about to befall them, Conn,
who with her partner, Gwen Baba, already had one child, began a documentary
about surrogacy - their choice for the delivery of their second child.
When it was discovered not too deeply into the pregnancy that the surrogate
had lied about just about everything, including her own health, and that
the fetus was not thriving, the question of terminating the pregnancy became
foremost in everyone's minds.
But just whose decision is it when a pregnancy involves eggs harvested by
two women, while a third carries the fetus?
Other ethical and moral questions explored in "little man" - Conn's
very personal, very heart-warming/heartbreaking documentary - include the
elusive issue of when caring becomes cruelty.
Is it medical responsibility or medical interference to keep under-developed
infants alive who can't survive on their own without constant life support
(ventilators, etc.), who may eventually come home, but to 24/7 nursing care
and an existence based on machines?
Conn, hell-bent on keeping one-pound Nicholas alive, is at odds with her
partner, who, it's clear, did not want to allow Nicholas to be delivered
by C-section three full months before his due-date, nor did she want the
medically challenged infant to be kept alive through artificial means.
Gwen feared it would destroy their family and ruin the quality of life of
their healthy daughter. She feared, and rightly so, that if Nick survived,
then even something as simple as a family drive would not be simple enough
to do ever again.
And her predictions were right. Brave little Nicholas lived, but has a very
rough road ahead - one which may or may not ever include that simple family
drive.
---
"little man"
Tonight at 8 on Showtime
