In this case I believe that a comparison of the religious beliefs which does not accept one aspect of medical treatment can be equated with a possible belief someone else might potentially have regarding the idea of letting children other than the first born starve to death. Jehovah's Witnesses do not reject all transfusions; only those which involve blood. Otherwise they seek the best and all possible medical treatment for themselves, and for all of their children. In this case the parents make the best choices that they could to give each child a chance to live. No doctor could honestly guarantee a 100-percent survival rate with any treatment now known. All anyone, parents or doctors, could do is their best under the present circumstances.
The fact is, until very recently there was a hands-off approach in the treatment of preemies. Those who were too underdeveloped or sick were allowed to die naturally. Of course, they were fed and cared for, but no aggressive treatment was initiated, but this did not mean that the parents or the doctors either, were negligent, or that they did not care about these children. What it meant was that at that time there was not a developed treatment and tools to enable these children to survive. Then, zealous medical personnel decided to make a career of trying to save these newborns. In 1975 the new medical specialty called neonatology (a branch of medicine concerned with the care, development, and diseases of newborn infants) was formed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. According to a recent survey, some 17,000 preemies weighing less than about two pounds [900 g] are annually admitted to the hundreds of special infant care units now operating in the United States. Now, even these very tiny ones are said to have about a 70-percent chance of survival. If you do the math, though, that would also mean that 30-percent do not survive, and this multiplied by six would be 1.8, and so the death of 2 out of the sextuplets would not be far from the average.