ABSTRACT
The possibility that heroic treatment of the physically defective neonate may be ill-conceived has been apparent for many years and focuses attention squarely on the problem of whether the doctor's function is to preserve life at all costs or to provide an acceptable quality of life. It is clear that the great majority of decisions involving the treatment of defective neonates are currently taken in private following agreement between the health caring staff and parents. As a direct consequence, a federal regulation was promulgated applying the Rehabilitation Act 1973 to the defective neonate. Very few would dispute the medical futility of rescuing an anencephalic neonate from an episodic fatal respiratory collapse; it is, perhaps, the classic example of what has been called 'physiologic futility'. We can thus see that, even if it has been reached by different paths, something of a consensus is evolving on both sides of the Atlantic as to the care of defective neonates and infants.
