I was thinking about the My Sister's Keeper post and I wanted to pose a question.
THe parents in the story have conflicting feelings about what is best for Anna and Kate and the kidney transplant. What happens when parents don't agree? Who gets to make medical decisions for a child? Should one parent have a greater say than the other?
Going back to my son's kidney thing - when the doctor first told us about it, he said that if it becomes a chronic problem, they will do surgery. My ex-husband's first response is, let's do surgery anyway and then it won't be a problem. My response is let's do whatever is the least invasive, least intense protocol. Let's only do surgery as a last resort.
The mama bear part of me flared at my ex-husband and I realized that even though we have joint custody and generally agree on all aspects of our children's care, I feel an intense sense of possession when it comes to these medical decisions. How far would I take it to make sure what I wanted done was done?
Do you think that one parent should be given priority over the other when it comes to these decisions?
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The jury's out on that one for me. If you're fortunate enough to have a significant other who is known for making sound decisions, then yes, I think there should be a meeting of the minds. Unfortunately, the situation is not always so. In many single-parent homes, there is one absentee parent who likes to make decisions just to prove his (or her I guess) parenting skills and not based on any research or even what the child may want. I dream of being able to share the decision-making process with someone as my son's father hasn't made one in the 8 years our son has been alive. He occasionally shows up to tell me that my son is not old enough to wash dishes or too young to do chores for an allowance, so I don't rely to heavily on his input. It would be hard, though, in a difficult situation like you described. If I make a decision, and my son is impacted negatively, his father could use that against me legally, even though he has no parental rights. It's a very tricky question.
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