Times getting better

Several news items on important bioethics issues are coming out in the New York Times. And they’re doing a decent job reporting some stories at least….in part….

A 38-year-old man who spent more than five years in a mute, barely conscious state as a result of a severe head injury is now communicating regularly with family members and recovering his ability to move after having his brain stimulated with pulses of electric current, neuroscientists are reporting.

“I still cry every time I see him, but now it’s tears of joy,” said the man’s mother, in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday; her name was withheld, to protect the patient’s privacy. “He can speak, he can watch movies without falling asleep, he can say ‘Mom’ and ‘Pop,’ and ‘I love you, Mommy.’ ”

This is news of incalulable importance for the disabled, their families and their advocates. It’s like cracking open the door to let in light for the media and secular progressive culture motivated to see people through a utilitarian lens, and to restrict medical treatment for the impaired under all kinds of excuses.

He eats without the assistance of a feeding tube. He has regained some movement in his arms. When he speaks, usually with only a word or two, he is engaged in the conversation. He recently recited the first 16 words of the Pledge of Allegiance.

This is a story of hope.

The new report, which appears in the journal Nature, provides the first rigorous evidence that any procedure can initiate and sustain recovery in such a severely disabled person, years after the injury occurred. An estimated 100,000 to 300,000 Americans subsist in states of partial consciousness, and most are written off as beyond help.

Doctors said it was not clear how many such patients would benefit from the treatment, in which two wire electrodes are implanted deep in the brain. The procedure also raises sticky ethical questions about operating on patients who cannot give their consent, they said.

“We really see this as a first step, but it should open doors that have not been open before for patients like this,” said Joseph T. Giacino, associate director of neuropsychology at the JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute, and the New Jersey Neuroscience Institute, in Edison. Dr. Giacino performed the study with doctors from the Weill Cornell Medical College and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.

However, it’s still the New York Times, so this was the story’s conclusion:

“He has regained his personhood, his personal agency,” said Dr. Joseph Fins, chief of medical ethics at Cornell, and a study co-author. The patient has amnesia and cannot yet fully represent his interests, Dr. Fins added, “but now he’s got interests to represent.”

He has always had interests to represent. He has always been a person. That’s where the story actually begins.