Original article here.

The New York Times recently reported that many people who are/were in a vegetative state and was once considered unable to ever recover, could have recovered.

In other words, people who doctors, judges, families and social workers made life ending decisions, it is now discovered, could have recovered.

Dr. Steven Laureys, an author of the new study and the director of the Coma Science Group at the University of Liège in Belgium, studied people considered in a vegetative state and one of his conclusionsstated, “Bedside clinical examinations can have high rates of misdiagnosis of unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (vegetative state) or minimally conscious state.”

How significant is this misdiagnosis?  Among those in a vegetative state, 31% were able to recover into a minimally conscience state or a higher level of consciousness within a year, despite giving no hope of recovery.

In many cases, doctors have removed these patients from life saving medical equipment.  Those who are not immediately removed from devises, they are often sent away to nursing homes and long term care facilities where no one will do what is needed to help the patient to recover.  In those cases, even if there is some improvement, the medical personnel may not be aware of improvements in the patient and are unequipped to provide the needed medical care for improvement.

This may bring back thoughts about Terry Shiavo, who was considered in a “vegetative state.”  Food was taken away leaving her to starve to death.  There was a debate at the time by experts on whether she should live or die and whether she was in a permanent vegetative state.  After a court order, Terry lost that battle when on March 18, 2005 when her feeding tube was removed.

We can only wonder if a PET scan could have been performed on her, whether science would have relieved her of this fate.

For a secular world, who lack any real worldview on who is worthy of life, have few consistent answers. In fact, they have been known to justify most any case of murder whether in the womb because the child is inconvenient to someone who is older for the same reason.  I doubt there will ever be a rational discussion from a secular worldview.

As for Christians, we believe all humans are created in God’s image.  As a result, life is precious.  The down syndrome child is just as precious as the genius of Einstein.

As a result, we tend to be in favor of life and, when in doubt, we hold out more hope.

For a secular worldview, I doubt these studies will mean anything.  The secular, with no solid foundation of morality, will still find reasons to justify murder.  For a Christian, though, this should invoke cause for great discussion.