a medical emergency must get "such treatment as may be required to stabilize the medical condition" before the patient is transferred to another facility. The court refused to take a moral or ethical position on the issue, insisting that it was only interpreting the laws as they existed. As a result of the decision, Keene was kept on the respirator much longer than most anencephalic babies. It has been suggested by the dissenting judge in the case that the court should have used the condition anencephaly as the basis of the case, not the recurring subsidiary symptoms of respiratory distress. As the irreversibility of anencephaly is widely understood in the medical community, he argued that the decision to continue futile care only resulted in the repetitive diversion of medical equipment. Keene's cardiac death occurred on April 5, 1995, at Fairfax Hospital, at age 2 years 174 days. Significance The case of Baby K is of particular importance to the field of bioethics because of the issues it raises: the definition of death, the nature of personhood, the concept of futile medical care, and many issues relating to the allocation of scarce resources. Some commentators, including Arthur Kohrman and Jacob Appel, have argued that the ruling effectively undermined the right of physicians to make sound medical decisions. See also Baby Doe Law References External links Futile Care and the Neonate: In the Matter of Baby K at Medscape 1992 births 1995 deaths Medical controversies in the United States K Child deaths