Baby Jane Doe regulations, rules established in 1984 by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department requiring state governments to investigate complaints about parental decisions involving the treatment of handicapped infants. The rules also allowed the federal government to have access to children’s medical records and required hospitals to post notices urging physicians and nurses to report any suspected cases of denial of proper medical care to infants. The controversial regulations were found unlawful by a federal court. Nevertheless, regulations still exist that require health care providers to provide treatment for severely handicapped newborns except when death appears inevitable, when treatment merely prolongs inevitable death, or when treatment is considered so futile as to be inhumane. For the most part responsibility for enforcement has been transferred to hospital ethics boards and state child protective services agencies. Also called Baby Doe rules.
