Re: What is the default action for infants?

1) Neither scenario applies in this case, as she is very well aware and awake to speak her mind. That said, your questions are important... 2) What is the "default choice" assuming the person has never expressed an opinion before? I would, mostly though not completely, reduce it to potentiality. An infant or very young child, presumably, has an almost unlimited potentiality to be that proverbial "anything they wish", except probably for those already born with serious terminal or debilitating diseases for which no cure or significant amelioration has been found. Therefore, the default action for infants and very young children would be to try to save their lives even at a relatively high cost. The polar opposite would be a very old person, say, Strom Thurmond aged, who, regardless of their previous life history or general health, has, by the very fact of their age, relatively little potentiality, and probably even less depending on what the life-threatening event or condition is. Therefore, the default action would be not to fight for their lives if the chance of recovery is slim. Admittedly, both are extreme cases and most cases are in the middle. You correctly distinguish that chance of recovery should be a deciding factor, for instance (which still is, mathematically, linked to potentiality). As cold-hearted as that probably sounds, who pays the bills should also be a factor - if a billionaire-rich family is willing to pay for a life without a chance of recovery, they should be allowed to waste their money that way, but otoh, public or charity money should not be spent in the same fashion (with a possible exception, sometimes, for clear and otherwise unattainable scientific research purposes; or in order to wait for a perfect timing to schedule organ donations)... 3) This question must be answered by someone, Indeed - but as any such questions, it poses an enormous accountability problem (quis custodiet?) when you outsource it to a permanent body that furthermore is neither elected nor removed due to the decisions they take - which is what a doctor, or a hospital's internal committee, would be. Part of the decision could and probably should be legislated, but most of it should still be left open after any such parliamentary act. Furthermore, the treating doctors might not be able to take the necessary distance to look at the issue - and that's not to speak about the family, whose emotional investment is all the greater and for whom this issue is for the most part simply impossible to abstract and think of in third person; all of which contributes to clouded judgment. Ideally, it should be a joint and consensus decision, and, imho, coherent with the spirit of what I answered in the first question. In reality, I think we'd have to settle, for the most part, with family wishes after medical advice and opinion is heard, subject to the above limitation on usage of public or charity resources. There should furthermore be a list of precedence on who decides, to avoid Schiavo-like intra-family conflicts. That's my two kopeks...