Despite the natural desire in obstetrics for a happy outcome, sometimes the common aggressive interventions will not help maintain a pregnancy until viability.
Refusal of pediatric euthanasia can be considered iatrogenic insofar as it inadvertently prolongs patient suffering, but attitudes differ cross-culturally.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(8):802-814. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.8.msoc1-1708.
Physicians are obligated in many jurisdictions to perform life-sustaining treatments on premature infants with serious developmental or physical impairments, even if it goes against the parents' wishes.
Although parents may someday have the ability to enhance the complex physical and mental traits of their offspring, such genetic enhancements raise a number of difficult ethical questions.