It is one thing to permit the hospital to withdrew its involvement and care. But to deprive the parents of the opportunity to bring their child to another institution where treatment is being offered is another. It seems very cruel
15
Those three compassionate doctors were doing their best to care for and protect their patient. Thank goodness the British legal system is protecting their medical care-givers from those religious zealots who claim to be speaking from a higher authority.
20
I suspect had Trump ordered the child off life support, there would have been an uproar from the very same people who here argue that the gov't has a better grasp of the interests of the child than the parents. What I'm saying is I believe people are arguing with their political 'team' as opposed to ethics. This is ironic considering the pious accusations that the UK gov't sees children as autonomous human beings-- the same gov't that looked the other way when 1000s of children were being raped because they were terrified of being accused of racism - it being more important to save their skin from an accusation than to protect children from rape and torture - but I digress.
I see a lot of strawmen arguments here. No one is arguing that children are objects. On the contrary. One can't argue that the gov't is paying so therefore has a right, because there were offers to pay for his treatment. Nor can one argue he was suffering because there are no indications he was. And morally, even if someone is suffering, that alone is not a reason to allow removal of life support. If you are suffering, you may still want to live.
So what can one argue? Listen to what you're saying. You are saying that the gov't can decide the life & death fate of a child, against parent wishes,with no proof of harm or pain, despite medicine not being foolproof, despite the gov't not paying. Just because.
Ask yourself how this can be abused. You should not want this for your child.
3
The government ruled against prolonging the child's death. His higher brain functions (that is, everything other than brain stem autonomic functions) were gone. Multiple scans revealed the brain matter had been replaced by spinal fluid. Maintaining the body after the brain is gone is ghoulish. I think people see the word 'treatment' but confuse it with efforts to improve the patient's condition. In this case the 'treatment' would have been permanent intubation - tracheotomy, feeding tubes and so on.
20
I have followed developments in this tragic episode closely and note that there are two broad groups of comment whether in print or in television interviews. There are those who feel that the parents right to choose is being usurped and those who think the decision over life and death should be made by God (Poland and Italy being prime examples) What is missing here is consideration of what is in Alfie's best interest and whether the parents wishes are in line with his best interests or not. This is what the UK law is designed to determine. Everybody gets to put forward their case and the court decides what is in Alfie's best interest.
The UK system of dealing with such disagreements has come in for a lot of criticism but no one has offered a better alternative that can safeguard the rights of someone who cannot speak for themselves. I am surprised that no clinicians in the US have offered their opinion in the broadsheets or outlined how these matter are dealt with in the US and whether they consider them satisfactory. Isn't it time we heard from them?
10
I agree there is a need in society to place the child's best interest first otherwise we will be allowing issues like child abuse to flourish. However there is an equal need to be responsible to the care of the parents and family in medial decision-making. Unfortunately there appears to be a huge lack of counselling and support for families in the UK as there is barely any publicly funded treatment for mental health or bereavement.
But a social media driven mob at the doors of a hospital is pretty disturbing -there is a total lack of respect for professionals. What is to stop this mob situation happening at another hospital?
6
The saddest and happiest day of my life was when, after years and years of life sustaining treatment, my mother's doctors called and asked "what should we do,." My answer "Make her comfortable". And the same goes for me. There is no "up-side" when all that realistically remains is the "down-side".
In this case valuable resources are being used in a hopeless situation when they could be put to better use helping someone who could recover and become truly viable.
22
Land of hope and glory ... and euthanasia.
God had already called Alfie Evans home. It is not euthanasia but rather kindness to refuse to prolong the dying process.
12
Those that would like to be trapped in their own body speak up. I for one, would not wish to be at any age. This child is not going to recover so why would anyone that believes in a benevolent God prevent this child from going to his creator.
Leave it to coniving Ted Cruz to enter into the conversation just so he can claim that socialized medicine is bad. USA politicians will stop at nothing in order to force their ways on others. Ask Ted what he has done for the children in Texas.
38
To the parents and to the Pope - do you trust God? If you do, then let this little boy go. Why would anyone want to prolong his suffering?
If you say he is not suffering, then you are saying he is not capable of feeling. If you say he is capable of feeling, but he must be hooked up to every machine and forced to endure every treatment, no matter how horrific and painful, then you are saying you want him to continue suffering. If you say you trust in God, then you can't also say it is better to "live" and suffer than to die and have peace.
24
How can some people, who are not faced with the possibility of losing their child, be so heartless and make comments comparing this child to that of a puppy? Adults with terminal cancer, or rare terminal illnesses, who have money or money donated to pay for experimental treatments to prolong their lives, are given the chance to try everything other medical Drs offer for a possibility of a few more months, years, remission, or cure! God forbid, as a mother, I would hope I had the right to try everything possible that may help my child, especially if my govt isn't paying! Why not try every treatment other Drs and hospitals suggest? What's wrong with trying every medical treatment offered, even if those treatments can only guarantee a small percentage of success? How can anyone, not faced with such a heartbreaking dilemma, make comments about what's right or wrong, re another's life! I'm sure these parents, if after these treatments, saw that this last hope didn't work, would've come to terms with the child's impending death, and would have then been allowed to make that heartbreaking decision for their child, at least knowing they tried everything humanly possible! How could the courts take their hope and their rights as parents away? This is just unbelievable that parents have no rights as to what's in the best interest of their own child! My heart aches for this family!
3
The parents do have rights; their rights stop though when what they want is detrimental to the child's welfare. So in this case, prolonging his suffering unnecessarily because they don't want him to die cannot be allowed because that is detrimental to the child.
It's natural for a child's parents not to want to see their child die. It's natural to want to keep him alive no matter what. But this is exactly why their rights cannot be pre-eminent - they find it hard to separate their own emotions from what is good for the child. In this case, the courts have examined all the evidence - impartially and unemotionally - and found that it is not in the child's interest to prolong his life artificially and allow his suffering to continue.
I don't fault his parents for being unable to understand that at such an awful and emotional time. They are only human, facing a horrible set of circumstances which you would not wish on anyone. I think though, they have been falsely guided by some seriously bad actors, trying to use this family for their own political ends.
23
Unfortunately, the parents of this little by who has since died, had no choice in determining the ultimate care of their own child. A government team decided this. The ACA and socialized universal health care in the US will be facing the same. before too long. Yes, these government-controlled groups are indeed "death panels." How many more parents of young ones like Alfie Evans and Charlie Gard will have to endure the loss of their children because of government-imposed restrictions and decision making? Parents are the guardians of their children and retain the right to decide on their care or what are "health care proxies" for? RIP little Alfie.
2
IMO, the NYT article doesn't present the full picture in respect of the court decisions in this case.
The parents lost the original case concerning the withdrawal of ventilation in the High court in England; which decision was subsequently upheld by the Appeal Court
Thence it went to the Supreme Court which considered the case and refused the right for another appeal
The European Court of Human Rights also ruled the case inadmissible
A habeas corpus case was then launched by the parents which was also considered and then rejected by the same four courts.
So, this case has been considered at the highest levels in both the UK and European courts and they have determined that the best interests of the child are paramount, that ventilation should be withdrawn and that moving him to another country would cause significant distress.
The information and judgements are all on-line and commentators may wish to read them before commenting
32
This is the public health care that some many Bernie-ites desire.
An over-reaching public advocate that decides what care you can receive and a promise of equal abysmal healthcare for all.
3
You really don't know a lot about this case or the British system do you?
That 'over-reaching public advocate' is the British legal system. Complaining that a legal system advocates is a bit weird. What else do you expect it to do?
how do you think a terminally ill child with no chance of recovery would have fared in a health insurance system driven by profits?
26
I can relate to parents who care beyond all reason about their child, however I cannot relate to parents who want to keep their child's body alive when the only quality of life they are really considering is their own. If it was a puppy needing this level of support (with no actual hope of improvement) everyone would be supporting the choice to let him go. For every miracle that occurs, millions succumb to the reality that science predicts. Why are others supporting these parents to keep this little boy in limbo? How many adults would consider Alfie's life something they would be happy to 'live'?
20
When the brain has liquified, as tests on this poor child revealed, it is unkind to prolong the dying process. May he rest in peace.
17
I wish articles, particularly about situations in other countries like this one, would do a better job of explaining the legal and ethical parameters. For example, it is one thing if the court ruled that the National Health Service does not have to continue paying to keep this child alive, whether in London or out of the country. It is another thing if the court said the parents must terminate treatment even if they have private funding. It is not entirely clear to me which it is.
3
Italy granted the baby citizenship. There is/was a air ambulance waiting to transport the baby. The NHS wouldn't have been footing the bill.
5
The supporters of Alfie's parents had promised to provide the funding, so in that sense the funding would have been private. But the European and British courts ruled that the parents had no right to prolong the life of what was essentially a body without a brain, when there was no hope of recovery or even of life independent of life-support machines.
Personally, having been in a similar situation myself, I don't think it is in the parents' interests to encourage them to indulge in hopeless hope. Death is not some cruel and unnatural punishment; it's a natural process and can provide merciful closure to a drawn-out tragedy, allowing the dead to rest in peace and giving the living the chance to mourn them and move on.
21
It wasn't an issue of cost/resource; it was an issue of welfare. Did his parents have the right to continue his suffering with no hope of an improved outcome (i.e. he would be suffering needlessly). Once the courts had ruled they didn't, because the other options offered - Italy etc - would not have changed the outcome, just prolonged the suffering, the courts then had to order that he could not be removed.
9
A lot of harsh comments have appeared in this tragic case ranging from saving money to ousting parental rights or duties.
The UK system is peculiar in that it gives absolute control over people through the Court of Protection. This jurisdiction is fraught with historical overreach.
The decision made would appear to contravene Article 2 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights which the British Courts are obliged to implement. (they haven’t left Europe yet).
Article 2 concerns the right to life and Article 8 concerns the right to privacy and family life. Worth a read. Article 2 in particular appears germane.......
1. Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.
1
The decision to discontinue treatment has already been referred to the European Court of Human Rights, so these articles are no longer relevant - for a timeline see https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/alfie-evans-timeline...
I do not believe that cost of treatment is a factor here - though accept that there are cultural differences between the way this type of case is handled in the UK cf. other countries.
3
I'm not a lawyer, but for me the key word in Article 2 is 'intentional'. If they injected him with something to kill him, that would be killing him intentionally. Here they are letting nature take its course because there is no hope for him.
With holding treatment is not intentional killing. Our courts and laws make a distinction. If you with hold treatment then what kills the person is the condition/disease, not the action of with holding treatment. Otherwise, brain-dead people would have to be kept on life-support indefinitely under this article; relatives would never be able to consent to life-support being withdrawn. This is a principle that is pretty well established in European law, so it is not at odds with the ECHR - there is case law determining that this is allowed. Because in a pragmatic society, you have to recognise that all hope might be gone yet some level of life remains.
8
What is the point of keeping a body alive when the brain is gone?
13
it's SO hard to offer an opinion about the parents or the doctors being right in this tragic, heartbreaking case... what I can only say is that, if it was my baby, I would definitely choose to let him die, to let him become an angel, to end his suffering, to end my family's suffering, to prevent a torturous, nonsensical future... to prevent this inhuman modern scientific ability to go against what everything Nature (not to mention logic) wants... I am not a monster, I have 3 kids and totally understand what the parents are going through here but, please, let life be life and death be eternal peace... my prayers with Alfie!
17
An appallingly tragic situation. But to support other UK commentators here it is not a Government decision. Our Courts are free of Government control. Our judges are not appointed by the Government.
What I cannot accept is the need for Police guards for the Alder Hey hospital staff who have been threatened while doing their jobs to care for hundreds of other patients.
www.alderhey.nhs.uk/open-letter-chairman-chief-executive-alder-hey-child...
The threat of violence will not solve anything.
13
HywelDda the nuns and the priests are not infallible or GOD ( example: centuries of priest sex abuse), and there is absolutely no proof that what they command the desperate and ignorant to do under threat of going to hell is true or moral as opposed to being a decision made by society's rich and powerful as a means to advance their selfish 1% interests. The scientific facts are that this child is in humiliating agony, is in a torture chamber suffering for the vanity of his parents and religious authority. And of course they are not bearing the "costs" at all! The millions spent to play their holier than thou "we value life" and let God decide theatre are scarce funds that by definition will not be available to save or heal other children. And of course if we were letting God decide the child would not have been given extraordinary care to begin with and would be long over the suffering.
9
Then perhaps we should invest more money into the health care of all children as to not force our hand to decide which are not worth saving.
The scientific fact is that the child is not in a "humiliating agony" as he does not have the intellectual capacity for humiliation and he does not show signs of distress. The reason to allow him to die (not so different from locking the ER doors and letting someone bleed to death on its doorstep) is because others have deemed his life not worth living and not worth saving.
3
In what sense would keeping a child with no brain physically alive indefinitely on machines constitute 'saving' him?
12
I've witnessed young men risk their lives crawling under bullets to bring back wounded who showed NO signs of life, were missing limbs or blue with blood loss. They often lost their own lives doing it.
Ask ANY of these citizen soldier/medics whether they would do it again and to a man they'll agree "...life should be prolonged at all costs...".
"Roman Catholic doctrine allows doctors to withdraw medical care, even food and water, under some circumstances but not others"?
I'm a septuagenarian who the Nuns, Brothers and Priests taught that we have the responsibility to do EVERYTHING possible to prolong life and ONLY God has the right to end it.
When did GOD change HIS mind?
or were these Roman Catholic authorities lying?
RVN '66-'67
1st Bn, 26th Inf
1st Inf Div
1
I just talked to God. S/he says you’ve misunderstood his/her intention.
19
When Senator Cruz and the Pope weigh in, medical science gets pushed aside.
17
“Tyranny, Tyranny, Tyranny. Nothing but state sponsored murder.“
[Parents with a] “pathological unwillingness to accept reality”
“[These] actions don't make sense, unless the NHS is eager to harvest transplant organs.”
“abusive parents”
“Everyone involved in preventing the parents from seeking care elsewhere should be tried, found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder then executed.”
Parents, medical providers and advocates for Alfie Evans and others like him, are being forced to make the most agonizingly difficult, heart-wrenching decisions imaginable. These situations are as complex as they are tragic. While most of the comments written in response to this article are thoughtful and compassionate, too many are disturbingly inflammatory (see above).
Demonization and name calling add fuel to the fire of social and political polarization that is gripping our country. And so – a plea for civility - for intelligent and respectful discussion, for listening with compassion and open minds. To do otherwise will make it impossible for individuals with different beliefs to work together and find common ground.
26
At last a reasonable, reasoned voice amongst all the high emotion and vicious rhetoric. You have restored my faith in commentators.
5
My problem with having the hospital decide when to terminate the life of a patient rather than the family is the fact that "a life worth living" is a subjective value judgement. Robyn Williams decided his remarkable, healthy life was not worth living while some MS and Huntington's disease patients cling to every breath as their minds and bodies fail.
The fact that the child will never get better doesn't mean that he does not or cannot value his own life. And if his mind is so far gone that he is basically dead, why not give the child's body to his parents to try what they need to try to come to terms with their sons condition and impending death? This child does not need a mercy killing.
5
From what I read here, there doesn't seem to be medical evidence that Alfie is in pain. But his parents are in pain, and it seems cruel for the court to rule that he cannot be taken out of the country. It also seems cruel to sentence Alfie to death essentially by starvation. Some of Solomon's wisdom appears to be needed here.
5
The parents' concern for their child is certainly understandable. It is predicated on normal, human sentiments. They have an emotional attachment to their son. They are also living in a world of ignorance and wishful thinking, and they are letting that dimension overrule rational sensibility.
The doctors and the courts must have some empathy for little Alfie, but they are guided by objective medical assessments that suggest that there is no realistic hope for the child. I must assume that their position is based on the consensus opinions of multiple members of the medical and ethical communities. I'm sure their verdicts were not rendered callously.
So, what should prevail? The emotional desires of the parents or the fact-based conclusions of the doctors and judges? The brain-dead child really has no stake in the matter - he's already effectively dead. The question is whether or not to keep the body alive artificially or let nature take its course. The only real difference in the outcome is how long it will take. Facing the inevitable and shortening the process makes more sense to me; apparently the UK authorities feel the same way.
12
You miss one point: human life is sacred.
2
Not under UK/European law. I don't think we have such a concept of 'sacred' anyway.
I mean, there are myriad ways that we accept that life isn't sacred. We allow the organs of brain dead people to be harvested to allow others to live. If life was sacred, we wouldn't be able to do that; we'd just let the recipient die.
We'd have no armies, fight no wars. We wouldn't train soldiers to kill.
People with mental health issues, with increased risk from suicide, would be at the forefront of medical care, because we'd want to keep them alive, no matter what they were enduring.
In a million ways, we demonstrate daily that life isn't 'sacred' (whatever that may mean). A society which favoured life over all else would be good in some ways (no wars!) but also scary in others (live over quality of life/suffering).
10
No it isn't.
5
The most important part of me is my brain. It is what makes me myself. Not my hands, or arms or my physical body. Without the thinking unit, I am not me.
I have informed my loved ones that should I be in a terrible accident that finds me in a vegetative state, that they should pull the plug and get on with the grieving. Because once my brain is gone, I am not living. I am just a shell with a pulse and would not want to continue living.
Look at Stephen Hawking. He had a disfigured body, but his brain was what made him the person he was.
Likewise, what good are the parents doing for the child? Nothing to my thinking. They are just prolonging the pulse in a shell as they project their sense of life onto the physical body. They are also prolonging their sense of loss, putting off the grieving and treating the shell of the child as a physical possession. If the brain cannot function the person is not there. The physical body has no sense of humor, no capacity to love, to grow or to become a person.
There is no person there. Pull the plug and let the body expire. Cry, grieve, bury and move on.
15
I would hate to be in the parent's shoes, but they are not paying for this treatment, the British taxpayer is. If the parent's were paying the whole tab, then they would be free to pursue what seems to be futile treatment. My friend say miracles happen, so in that case, if treatment is withdrawn and the child lives, so be it, but prolonging what seems to be a death sentence for the child is not humane, for the child OR the parents.
7
And it's not necessarily about the money. If there was a good case for leaving this child on support, then the NHS would do it.
But there isn't.
Also, just a side thought. This child is in a ICU bed. While he is there, others will not be receiving treatment, planned operations will be delayed because that ICU bed is in use. People's suffering will be lengthened because one of a limited number of beds is not available. Other patients might have to be taken to alternate hospitals, leaving their family having to travel further and all the knock on issues that would entail at a time which could already be traumatic.
In a system with tight resources, you have to appreciate the knock-on effects of what those expecting this child's 'life' to be maintained for no good reason are asking. That will be impacting on other people's lives who stories won't be front page news.
1
As best I can understand this from the limited information here, and similar cases in the past, the state and the medical advisers think, to put it bluntly, that the child is better off dead.
The only interest of the state at this point should be either to preserve life -- as it does when someone wants to murder another whom they believe would be better off dead -- or to limit its own expenses, protecting the interests of taxpayers.
Since the state is preventing the parents from taking the child elsewhere to receive treatment at someone else's expense, even if that treatment is futile, that amounts to a draconian overreach by the state.
There was a similar case in California a few years ago, where the parents finally won the right to take their child to another state with different laws. The child survives to this day, admittedly in a vegetative state, but that is acceptable to the parents.
1
Well yay for the parents. Not so much fun for the child in a vegetative state. It's appalling anyone thinks it's okay to cater to the parents' wishes rather than the child's welbeing, not to mention dignity and human rights.
Adults can at least make our wishes known to loved ones on what to do if we are permanently vegetative. Children have no such protections when parents take such selfish actions at their child's expense.
16
If human life is sacred (although I don't believe in the concept of sanctity) then surely it's wrong to make a mockery of it by keeping what's essentially a dead body alive on machines, dressing it up and pretending it's still alive. It is an insult to the dead person's humanity, and it does nothing to help the ones who loved him or her come to terms with their loss.
8
Thank you again, Wanda. It's essentially misuse of a corpse.
1
Taking your child to the hospital shouldn't mean giving up your parental rights. If the hospital says they can do nothing else for Alfie, and the parents want to persue other options, that should be their right. The "state" (and it's institutions) should be in service of it's citizens, not the other way around.
6
The child should be allowed to die.
5
It sounds like two loving parents in serious denial.
15
This is ridiculous. They need to give that child back to his parents and allow them to seek treatment on his behalf.
3
The 'treatment' was to intubate him. God had already called Alfie home.
1
I was raised by a Christian Scientist mother, and never once received any medications. I also never received any immunizations.
I survived through all the childhood diseases and can recall the horrible suffering.
I did not die, thankfully.
I think that government must save children from clearly irrational behavior, and ensure that their best interests are served. Families should not get to torture their babies because they are acting selfishly.
16
NY-er, Thanks for sharing your personal experience. This is such a tough situation. I think you bring very important first hand perspective to the discussion.
4
Thank you for speaking up, NY-er. I'm also a victim of Christian Science. There are many, many cases of Christian Scientists letting their children suffer horribly or die from conditions doctors could easily treat.
7
Let the parents seek alternative care.
3
"Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, describing the decision to take Alfie off a ventilator as a grim result of Britain’s socialized medical system."
On the other hand, here in America little Alfie Evans would have been sent home a day after birth to die, at little if any cost to this country's highly profitable health care industry.
Healing is an art. Medicine is a science. Healthcare is a business.
17
As usual, Senator Cruz is off-base and uses the issue to support his nefarious opposition to universal health care. This has nothing to do with the British universal health care system. It has to do with UK legal system. The same law would apply to the child if he was a paying patient in a private clinic in the UK. The law standard is ‘best interests of the child’, not parental rights. Parents are often emotionally unable to determine that interest. That said, physicians can be wrong too. But the judge in this case heard all sides.
19
Considerations:
Environment: does over-population justify euthanasia?
Physical pain: can we measure it yet? Ought we presume it?
Mental pain: Suicide is legal in UK. Who decides, in suicides?
Mental ability: Pets can’t speak or use knife & fork. We feed them.
A Woman’s Right to Choose: Kate’s then?
Just because: A comment without orange hair is like breakfast without orange juice. Are Mexican & Muslim majorities with HIM? Are you with THEM?
Alfie is offered super-expensive care for free. When a 24-hour (or 2-hour!) visit costs us $25K our medical establishment says it’s because they treat poor patients for free. OK, medical establishment!
Some Change.org petitioners seek to TRY a risky – and likely painful – treatment, and if it fails, to die having helped advance medical knowledge. In which graduate course were the experts taught Alfie’s wishes?
A commenter argues that if we can kill enemy soldiers we can let Alfie die. In a real emergency we WILL again draft Americans to risk horrible death. They’ll be able to speak, but YOU will be glad their voices don’t count. May we draft Alfie in the war on disease?
Expertise is under attack! Are trial lawyers experts? They love second opinions.
Science 101: Scientists worth their NaCl doubt their own opinions. This idea, too is under attack. Is “persecution” ever hubris in disguise?
I wouldn’t leave Alfie vegetative for years. But maybe he gets one more at bat. Because you printed his photo. GO FOR THE FENCES, ALFIE!
1
A brain scan should indicate activity or its lack. If Allie isn't brain dead, and if he's surviving when unhooked from machinery, the parents have a good case to prosecute. This might not be government decision making, but it's nanny state misbehavior. I say this as a proponent of universal health care for all; any country tat doesn't provide such care is barbaric.
1
You don't suppose it occurred to anyone at the hospital to do a brain scan, hm?
7
@TheBigAl
"The connective pathways within the white matter of the brain have been obliterated and are not identifiable on MRI scans done by the hospital." This is from the court summary of the case, I found it through a link in an article in VOX. So indeed the hospital is doing brain MRI scans, and it seems unlikely this young boy will recover. His brain stem functioning is responsible for his respiration but not any higher functioning.
5
The wording of the "prompt" here is typically loaded. Parental "feelings" and governmental "decision making"? What a bizarre way to express the central issue here. Who is in charge of Alfie, the parents or the state?
1
His parents are his guardians, but as a human being, he is imbued with his own set of rights which his parents can not unilaterally ignore, nor do they have absolute control over. In that case, the hospital is obliged to consider his rights separately and if they feel that what his parents want is not in his best interests, they can go to the courts and the courts then determine whose rights are pre-eminent. In this case, the courts have effectively said that Alfie's right not to suffer is stronger than his parents rights over determining his treatment.
If you give absolute parental rights, then parents who believe their child has been inhabited by a demon which needs to be exorcised with beatings, starvation, torture (as has happened from time to time) are allowed to do that because they believe it is in the best interests of the child.
5
At least NAME the baby's medical neurological condition! Otherwise we are talking nonsense on all sides.
Let's respect science, shall we? Let's use our limited resources wisely.
This child will certainly die soon. I understand the emotions behind it, but spending millions on him makes no sense.
When Ted Cruz gets into the pictures with his ignorant tweets, it's officially become a circus.
7
It's a deeply sad situation for many reasons. It's pretty obvious that the child is beyond hope. Even so, for the sake of limiting the damage that a public uproar could do, it would be better to let the parents take the child. Unfortunately it cannot be expected that the law will effectively deal with all the potential nuances of medical practice and end of life situations. Worse yet, the juxtaposition of death and the mysteries of religion overshadow reason and feed a dangerously virulent alt-right response that panders to the cult of "god, guns and limited government".
So the British court approves the withdrawal of care against the parents' wish. And they also prohibit the parents to take their baby and bring it to another EU country for care. Now that's such a clear overreach of the British courts! On the grounds that it is against the interests of the baby because it would suffer? What logic is that? So the court pretends to speak in the interests of the child by denying its sheer right to existence? Because of a possible outcome of suffering in the future? What point are they making other than a stubborn defiance of the parents' feelings and rights while other countries offer free care and a citizenship for the child and even the Pope weighed in.
1
No, it's not an over-reach of the British courts. The court has a duty to consider the interests of the child as set out in the Children's Act. If this is set out in legislation, with a large amount of case law behind it, and which has been tested all the way to the ECHR, then I really don't think you can use words like 'over-reach' - since this power was granted to the court in specific legislation nor 'pretend' - since the court has the power to act in the child's interest it clearly isn't pretending. It has that power. both the court and the hospital have the right - and indeed the duty - to consider if the parents are really acting in the best interests of the child. And this is necessary because sometimes, the parents can be too caught up in their own emotions to be able to do something that causes them more pain, but which helps the child. We know it's hard. but sometimes, parents don't do the best thing for the child. It's very human, it's awful, but the Childrens Act was brought in to ensure that the child is protected.
4
Not mentioned here is that the Italian physicians recommended PALLIATIVE care.
15
Can anyone justify NOT letting parents go to Italy?? they are not asking the government or the British medical system for any extra resources. They have secured safe passage for their beautiful boy in the hope that something positive might come of it? How can we sit idly by and watch the state mandate the boys death against the wishes of the parents? Its absolutely terrifying and heartbreaking.
The argument is that medical professionals (including those abroad) are in agreement that nothing can be done to improve his health. At best they may be able to slow or stop the progression of his degeneration. Therefore, the only thing further medical treatment can do is cause suffering and is thus cruel.
I dont personally agree with this but thats the argument.
1
The U.K. is certainly taking a harsh stance on this baby's life. I would not, given his few signs of awareness, and ability to breathe on his own, remove him from life-support. Especially when his parents want him, with his challenges -- which can consume their life and resources.
As the doctors don't know what's wrong with him, they haven't done their due diligence in forecasting his death. They have guessed at an outcome and presented it to the courts. This is not evidence, it's opiniin.
At the moment, starvation by doctors is how he will die. Doctors are supposed to save lives.
The NHS is woefully underfunded. It has received much negative publicity for turning away women on the verge of giving birth, for requiring the physically fragile to find work before receiving benefits. It seems these two things encourage faster deaths, and less expenditure from NHS.
Keeping people alive is expensive, and a healthcare system that judges who lives by its bottom line is not into healthcare, they are a corporation.
For some people, and with the family's approval, withdrawal of life support is best. In this case, there's not enough evidence to make the call.
3
Lilou - you state that "withdrawal of life support is best. In this case, there's not enough evidence to make the call". May I ask, are you a clinician, with the medical history to hand to inform you? If not, I don't think you are in a position to offer up your judgement on the matter.
I work in the NHS, and can assure you that the decision will not have been taken with cost as a primary concern. It is a quality of life issue, and I have no doubt that UK Child Safeguarding procedures will have been exhaustively followed before the decision to withdraw life support was made.
9
@Karmachochi -- I wrote, "As the doctors don't know what's wrong with him, they haven't done their due diligence in forecasting his death. They have guessed at an outcome and presented it to the courts. This is not evidence, it's opinion." This was in regard to the infant who is the subject of the article.
At the end of my comments, I said, "For some people, and with the family's approval, withdrawal of life support is best. In this case, there's not enough evidence to make the call."
You've misquoted me. Further, while the NHS does its best, it's woefully underfunded, and people are dying as a result. This can be found in respectable British and American newspapers.
And, though it's a difficult call, who has more right to kill this child--the NHS, counting its pence, measuring the value of a life by how much that life will cost them, or the parents, knowing they may face a life of chronic fatigue and stretched funds, to care for a child they love.
To starve a breathing child to death, with no evidence before the court as to what's the matter with the child, is the job of perverse executioners, not doctors.
I think the care givers have done a pretty good job under the circumstances and the UK legal system ensured that everyone had their say and ultimately the decision that served Alfie's best interests was made.
All very fraught but considered and measured and as fair as this process could ever be.
3
As long as the parents are willing to shoulder the burden of payment for the care of this child, let them seek further intervention wherever they see fit. I am not sure it is fair to expect taxpayers to pay for continued care now that the medical professionals have determined that the child's condition is terminal.
1
It is one thing for courts to act in cases where private parties dispute -- for instance, where a hospital wants to be let off the medical hook. It is quite another, and frightening, thing for governments (not the judiciary) to step in with unilateral, unasked-for fiats. That really does invoke "death panels." And it is beyond egregious for any instrument of power -- whether a government or a judge -- to forbid parents from trying to do what they can lawfully do to try to save a child's life. That's a death penalty, pure and simple. How is it any different from government seizing the child and killing him or her?
2
That's an absurd argument. No one is seizing and killing the child; he has a terminal illness. If you want to be mad at someone or something, be mad at the disease. No human is to blame for his sad condition.
6
What?
It is precisely the independent judiciary (not the government) that got involved, and they became involved at the request of doctors who believe it would be cruel and unethical to artificially maintain the suffering of this child, who is beyond hope and only going to get worse.
In fact, it is the same judiciary using the same laws protecting the interests of children who at other times rule for life-saving treatment for children that is being refused by their parents.
Sad times when arm-chair critics can so carelessly toss around paranoid terms like "death panel" to slander the rule of law when they disagree with a ruling.
4
I think you are commenting on a different case.
The courts would become involved when someone - either the parents or the hospital - made an application for an order to allow something to happen. The courts cannot act unilaterally - someone involved in the treatment of this case would have asked the court to resolve a dispute in the treatment of the child when the parents and the hospital had reached an impasse.
I understand the US courts can act exactly the same. Wasn't that what happened with Terry Schiavo? Did you complain about death panels in that case?
4
For all of you that want universal healthcare this is the reason that you shouldn't. I cant understand any of the legal decisions. They wont treat him, and they cant take him elsewhere? That is inhumane. Let the parents be sure that there is nothing more that can be done.
3
"Let the parents be sure that there is nothing more that can be done." Nothing more could be done. That's exactly the problem. Flying to Italy was not going to change that.
3
I don not believe any Goverment should interfere in a private personal family matter.
1
Okay. Then the NHS (which is government run) should not have treated the child at all. Anyone who gets sick in England should just be left to die, if they don't recover on their own. Or if they're in a car accident, they shouldn't go to the hospital expecting to have broken bones set. Government overreach!!
7
the government was not involved in this. This was a matter for the courts, the hospital and the family.
We have a fully independent judiciary here. They do not form part of the government. And as much as I hate our health minister, he knows better than to get involved in this in any way, shape for form. there is a system and a process for dealing with these cases, and it does not include governmental involvement.
3
The above question is illegitimate because the British courts, not the British government, ruled in the dispute between Alfie's parents and the Alder Hey treating-team.
The British courts are independent from the British government, which most certainly did not play a part in settling the dispute.
The dispute is concerned with the best interests of the child, Alfie, not his parents' feelings nor the British government's decision-making.
8
The doctrine of Parens Patriae allows the state to intervene in the best interest of the child whenever child abuse or neglect is suspected or if if a child is in need of protection due to having no caretakers. This clearly does not apply in Alfies case. He has two loving parents who are acting in what they believe to be the best interest of their son. Doctors are not infallible and routinely make the wrong diagnosis. Alfie shows no signs of suffering and so there is nothing to lose by allowing doctors in Italy to provide treatment. The question we should be asking is who does Alfie belong to? His parents or the state?
The 'treatment' would have involved a tracheotomy and feeding tube, just to prolong his dying process.
4
As a hypothetical.
Two parents love their child and only want the best for it. They also believe the child is infested with a demon and that in the best interests of the child, the demon must be driven out by starving it out of the child's body. So they deny the child food to save the child from the demon.
They did it believing it to be in the best interests of the child. According to your argument they should be permitted?
3
1. Parental feelings
Feelings can rational/normal or not. Normal fear is a sign/feeling of real danger. Fears without dangers are "phobias"-- delusions (mind playing tricks). 'Illusions' (in one sense) are also MIS-representations of reality, but included in the human genome--so normal; Mueller-Lyer illusion and hundreds of others.
Normally as knowledge and competence increase, danger and fear subside.
Do parents have extreme fears regarding their kids? It varies. "Helicopter parents" border on phobics; negligent ones are less caring than strangers, certainly less than professional caregivers. But ON AVERAGE' parents care and worry more. "Should parental feelings prevail" must be answered case by case.
2. Government policy. Civilized polities/communities assume default responsibility for children's welfare. Agencies will/should intervene when parents are negligent, irrational, or incompetent.
Education is compulsory because parents cannot be trusted to educate--due to negligence, incompetence--and ever increasing educational standards.
Civilized polities LET parents care for their children, even assuming burdens of proof of negligence or incompetence. Children must be nourished and educated or the community, culture--its economy too--will degenerate--spiral down. Children are paradigm public goods.
For centuries European Family Law was the Church's jurisdiction. With education, Family Law secularized, god stories became mythology-except where theocracy lingers on.
1. Parental feelings
Feelings can rational/normal or not. Normal fear is a sign/feeling of real danger. Fears without dangers are "phobias"-- delusions (mind playing tricks). 'Illusions' (in one sense) are also MIS-representations of reality, but included in the human genome--so normal; Mueller-Lyer illusion and hundreds of others.
Normally as knowledge and competence increase, danger and fear subside.
Do parents have extreme fears regarding their kids? It varies. "Helicopter parents" border on phobics; negligent ones are less caring than strangers, certainly less than professional caregivers. But ON AVERAGE' parents care and worry more. "Should parental feelings prevail" must be answered case by case.
2. Government policy. Civilized polities/communities assume default responsibility for children's welfare. Agencies will/should intervene when parents are negligent, irrational, or incompetent.
Education is compulsory because parents cannot be trusted to educate--due to negligence, incompetence--and ever increasing educational standards.
Civilized polities LET parents care for their children, even assuming burdens of proof of negligence or incompetence. Children must be nourished and educated or the community, culture--its economy too--will degenerate--spiral down. Children are paradigm public goods.
For centuries European Family Law was the Church's jurisdiction. With education, Family Law secularized, god stories became mythology-except where theocracy lingers on.
Heartbreaking for the poor parents, a terrible decision to face. I can't imagine anyone getting through such an experience without scars of the worst kind.
A merciful god, if one existed, would surely end the child's life.
Suffering like this is not noble or meaningful or exemplary. It's just pain.
1
God did 'call him home' just as He did Terri Schiavo. When the brain has died, surely the soul/personage has gone.
2
The emotions of loving family should never be allowed to influence whether someone should be kept alive. Recall the parents of a catatonic women who fought the husband to discontinue life support. The mother's argument was that she was sure her daughter could still hear her. Think how horrible an existence she was wishing upon her daughter. If she could really still hear and think and feel, imagine not being able to communicate to the one's caring for you, that each time they roll you on your left or right side how excruciatingly painful that is. Begging in your mind to let you die. The selfishness of a loving mother. I wish there was a way to put the mother into the life she was wishing for her daughter. Let this baby live or die on its own. Seek no more medical treatment just because this is your child. Think if you would be happy living a brain damaged life. I believe more government decisions should be made like this through all spectrums of life.
2
If this one life is the only one we have - all beings - our one shout into the wind -isn't life for life's sake worth it?
There is a danger in drawing the line of a life worth living - did Stephen Hawking live a life full of pain? Probably. Was his life not worth it?
I am a believer in socialized medicine but this goes too far. People with profound disabilities and lives full of pain can go on to have incredible, meaningful lives in big and small ways. If we decide to eliminate any "painful" life where do we stop?
3
Comparing this situation to Stephen Hawking is not even close to accurate. And, again, this has nothing - zero - to do with socialized medicine.
7
Will someone please tell me why new forms of treatment for anyone with a fatal illness should be considered humane? There is a reason that many hospice units, at the request of their patients and/or families, choose "comfort care". Quality of life is integral to life itself. Yes, it is tragic that these parents are faced with the health challenges that face their child. But "magic" medicine is not going to make the situation better.
12
The right course of action is to defer to the judgment of the expert physicians. There are a number of tests that can be run to assess brain function and to determine objectively that there is irreversible brain damage. The fact that the father wants to charge the doctors with conspiracy to murder, when in fact they are acting to reduce unnecessary suffering of the child, shows that the poor man is in severe denial. It comes down to what one thinks is best for the child, what is the most humane course of action, not the rights of the parents.
Given this it makes sense for the courts to deny the parents the right to seek help elsewhere, particularly when the doctors in Italy agree with the UK doctors prognosis. But it is heart wrenching to force parents to in effect give up hope, give up on a possible miracle. I can't help but have mixed feelings about restricting the movement of the almost dead child to Italy or Poland. Some Poles and others are coldly using the infant for their own self-serving political interests.
5
I can see the reasoning behind no more care but I really can't wrap my head around the ruling to not let them seek care elsewhere. If they are prepared to pay for it let them go and try. It probably won't do any good but at least they can look at each other and know they did all they could do and not have that little doubt bell ringing in their heads for the rest of their lives.
9
I looked up a study of American pediatric intensive care units. The mean length of a stay in a PICU is less than a week. 70% of deaths in a PICU come following withdrawal of life support and that number increases with increasing length of stay, especially over one month. Alfie Evans has been in a PICU for over 16 months. All the doctors who have seen him agree that he is suffering from a degenerative brain disease. They also agree that even if a diagnosis could be made and a treatment found to halt that degeneration, his brain will never recover because, sadly, the extent of damage his brain has suffered is irreversible. Even the doctors in Italy agree with this. His parents don't want to believe it and so refuse to accept it. Most parents come to recognize when maintaining a child on life support is futile but when they don't, yes I think it is right for the courts to intervene. Maintaining a child in the state that Alfie is currently in isn't keeping him alive, it's just prolonging his death.
28
Still, it seems that the issue here is that there are medical professionals/facilities willing to try to help, yet the parents are not allowed the choice to take him to them. This seems to be a very real threat to freedom of choice, something we adamantly favor when dealing with abortion concerns. The removal of the parental power here is what Terry Schiavo's husband fought for, on the other side. How is their desire different?
3
If you look at what the other facilities are offering it isn't really help in the sense of a possibility of a treatment or a cure. What they are offering is to continue to maintain the child on life support in the same state of prolonged dying he's been in for the last year or so.
9
They are not offering to "help" in terms of possible options to increase the child's chances of wakeful and responsive living.
2
That's a rather loaded question - there is no "government decision-making" involved. The independent judiciary has been asked to judge what is in the child's best interests. The Court has had to weigh up the presented medical evidence, including on the one hand that from the hospital arguing that further treatment is futile and will only prolong suffering, and on the other hand evidence put forward by other experts arguing otherwise. The Court has made its decision, based on the evidence presented. No government decision-making here. Google will provide you with a transcript of the judge's analysis - it's worth a read.
19
As a lawyer, I can tell you that this is hairsplitting. According to the article, the court "prohibited his parents from seeking treatment elsewhere."
The judiciary is a branch of the government, which will enforce the court's decision against the parents. Of course this is "government decision-making."
3
In your opinion, the court system is not part of government?
Either you're not a lawyer, or your experience in the US is very different to the UK, where the judiciary is most assuredly capable of taking decisions free from government interference. Check out the independent World Justice Project (WJP) data at http://data.worldjusticeproject.org, which finds that the UK scores very highly (0.93/1.00) for "no improper government interference in the judiciary". The equivalent data for the US (0.81/1.00) does in suggest that these protections may not be the quite so strong in the US.
The UK courts frequently make rulings that go against the expressed wishes of the UK government, not least in recent high profile cases relating to Brexit...
5
I would not want to be a member of the court to decide this highly charged, highly emotional and tragic situation. I am troubled that the courts have intervened in a private decision between Alfie's parents. Then again, I wonder, is the child only having his suffering prolonged without hope. I don't know.
I wonder who the doctors are and how they came to their conclusion. Surely they are not monsters...but maybe they are wrong. Maybe the courts are wrong too. I don't know.
I do know that as American I would not want any court telling me when to remove my child from life support. Where do we draw the line on government intervention? Is the government objection truly because of the welfare of the child and a real need to end suffering or is it merely a reason to stop spending money. The way I read the report I believe, very strongly that the issue is money and the unwillingness of the doctors to expend more energy to save this child.
Sadly too, I believe that the parents are grasping at straws and in their limited knowledge of medical science can't accept the hopelessness of this tragedy.
There probably is a point when doctors simply cannot in good conscience continue to advocate for treatment when all they see is hopelessness and despair including their own exhaustion.
Frankly, I think the courts made a giant mis-step by allowing themselves to be involved. The church too and politicians should also have stayed out of the private business between parents and doctors.
7
It's very possible that the rules applied to these situations are flawed for not making allowances for situations that stand on this knife edge. The law is written to protect children when the impulses of the parents are clearly not in the interests of the child as determined by medical experts. The law does not make allowances for exceptions so that the protection of children in substantive threat of harm is not compromised. I would not be willing to weaken the court's and the medical profession's power to protect children for the sake of a child that is beyond hope and solely for the purpose of pandering to the parents biological impulses to not give up.
3
A year on life support does not bode well for recovery.
7
No public health doctors are in it for the money. I'll never understand that attitude, and I don't know where it comes from. Who is out there making people think that doctors are money-grubbing Wall Streeters only out for a buck? Doctors have the hardest job on the planet, and literally the most important one if people are your top priority. Who is trying to destroy their reputation, and why would anyone do that? Do people think doctors get paid more when someone dies? Do they think doctors spend years of their lives studying, sleep-deprived, acquiring mountainous debt, because they want to make a buck by providing sub-standard care? Blaming doctors for incurable disease or untreatable medical conditions is cruelly unfair.
6
The medical reality is that this baby cannot be saved. This is tragic for his parents, and it is tragic because a life that could never have been must end. But it is the way it is.
This is not, however, a right to life issue or one that should be tied to abortion. Turning it into one does a disservice to the baby and to all those who oppose abortion, as well as to the medical profession and all children who are ill. There are some right-to-lifers who see threats to their position in tuna sandwiches. They should not control this debate.
This is at its core a medical issue. If there is agreement among doctors that this child cannot be helped, further treatment is not in the child's best interests. End of debate.
19
This is an extremely authoritarian statement. Doctors have been well-known to be wrong. That the state decides above the wishes of the parents, the individuals involved is tyrannical.
13
Surely there has to be a line somewhere. The alternative--which might not be all bad--is that everyone receives all the medical care he or she wants for themselves or for those whose treatment they control. Perhaps unfortunately, that is not the world we live in, because our various governments are unwilling to pay the costs that this would generate. If one is fabulously wealthy, one can perhaps get such treatment, but that has its own problems with it.
2
The parents are not asking for the government to pay for further care.
This decision should be up to the parents. For the government to weigh in and have control of such a personal and agonizing situation is unconscionable. It there are other options in other countries, they should be allowed to pursue them.
My husband and I say "doctors are only practicing". They are not gods. They are not always right and are very frequently wrong. I have read and personally known story after story after story when that has been so. I have watched people I know go for "routine surgery" and come out dead (or worse - alive but incapacitated). Almost two years ago, we were told by doctors that my husband had a terminal illness and would die in 12 - 18 months. They prescribed horrific treatments that would probably not help him and would give him a poor quality of life. We chose to seek non-conventional treatments elsewhere. So far, he is thriving. Maybe I should sue them for malpractice.
10
Maybe you should wait 18 months.
I very much hope your docs were mistaken and your husband's condition has been cured by kale juice or whatever unconventional means you have pursued. (I really do mean that. Best of luck to you both.) But usually doctors know more about medicine and the body than the rest of us do, because they've had ten or twenty years of education and ten or twenty or fifty years of practice, and we non-doctors have had basically none.
8
I see arguments back and forth about parents rights vs. government rights. Yet the debate comes down to the value of life and what constitutes a life worth living. On the one side, there are certainly folks who believe that as long as the patient is alive or, indeed, can be kept alive by machines and medicines that that is a life worth preserving. On the other side, are folks who speak more freely of "quality of life." For the former group, the latter idea, 'quality of life' is an unacceptable measure for to them all life should be saved, no matter the quality. The quality of life folks have a problem in that their position raises the question of who gets to decide what life is worth living.
In this case, it seems that the child's body has solved the question for the moment for he can breathe on his own. Short of withholding fluids/food, he is unlikely to die in the short term. For many withholding liquids/food is a whole different level from removing a ventilator. Even though many die naturally during a process in which they neither eat or drink, folks tend to view that process as "starving/dehydrating" and individual. They assume that suffering is generated.
In such cases, I think parents should be allowed to take their child home or overseas, if they wish. If this child is in a persistent veg state, he is beyond suffering. The system cannot help him, so no further care should be offered other than palliative care. Beyond that nature will take its course.
17
It's not so black and white. Both doctors and patients are capable of jumping to the wrong conclusions.
If there is a clear diagnosis and doctors have evidence that their prescribed treatment is effective, patients still have a right to refuse treatment but parents DO not have the right to refuse it for their kids. In those cases, the courts should side with the doctors.
For example: Religious extremists do not have the right to treat their kid's appendicitis with prayer. The appropriate treatment is surgery and antibiotics. Also, judges should be able to compel chemotherapy for some pediatric cancer patients, even if the patients and his parents are frightened by the short term side effects of chemo.
But when the doctors do NOT have a clear diagnosis, the patient, or his parents, should have the right to seek a second opinion.
Best response I've read so far.
The Italian doctors agreed that there was no hope of 'improvement'. They offered to keep the child's body alive indefinitely by artificial means. I do not think anyone knows whether the child was experiencing pain from the tubes, being bedridden, etc. Only his brain stem was functioning.
2
This is not like the Charlie Gard case. Charlie Gard was in pain every day of his tragically short life. His poor, tortured parents could not let him go, and it took the British courts to end the baby's suffering. Alfie Evans is never going to recover, but there is no evidence that he is suffering. There is no issue of cost to the state, either, as an Italian hospital has offered to treat the child for free. The more you look at this painful affair, the more it seems that the parents' wishes are being overridden in order to make a point. I am firmly on the side of the right to die, and I support abortion rights, but this is an abuse of governmental power. If it were happening in the US, I would be protesting in the streets.
35
My question is how long can the Italian hospital treat the child for free? If this is short-term, then that's one matter but what if the child continues to live for years, needing constant, resource-intensive, financially expensive care? Will the Italians continue to offer that care? If the child goes back to the UK, the British government has to assume the costs of care, unless the parents or someone else steps in to assume the costs of care.
These are British government/ societal questions so ultimately, as an American, it's not my say. But we have similar issues here in the US and rather than face them, we have allowed spending to grow without questioning the profits of the healthcare system, what is appropriately valued care, etc. Recognize that supporting one grievously disabled child's care might be less money for other less disabled/ healthy children to get care. (Of course, if we stopped our military spending, we'd have more leeway.)
12
It is a court decision, made under the Mental Capacity Act 2005. As in the U.S the judiciary here are not an arm of the government and this is not an 'abuse' of 'power' and no 'point' is being made (What point anyway?). It is however a decision taken by a very experienced Court of Protection judge after hearing considerable amounts of expert evidence. Perhaps you are wiser and more knowledgeable than these medical experts - but I doubt it.
27
According to everything I’ve read, the child IS suffering. It is the LAW, not the government, per se, that is defending the child. Do you honestly think that an entire hospital, full of doctors, nurses, and other caregivers, who have been caring for this child for over a year just want to get rid of him? Do you honestly thing that Italy has some magical cure than no one in the UK has heard about?
13
As I understand it, in Florida, the state only decides the best interests of the child in limited circumstances, for example when parents abuse, abandon or neglect a child. Those parents have been afforded due process including an attorney should they be unable to afford one. Only then does the state step in. Otherwise, the parents are the natural guardian of the child’s best interest. In my legal studies, the very best laws seemed to, from a bird’s eye view, follow what what i come to see as natural law. That fit parents are in the best position to decide what is in a child’s best interest, for me, falls squarely into this category.
As a liberal democrat, I don’t usually find my favorite opinion articles in the national review. This one, though, for me was on point:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-state-ordered-killing-of-young...
5
I agree. It is astonishing to me all of these posts by, I assume, liberals who think that the government should decide these most intimate questions.
1
The parents have every right to seek additional treatment for their child. Britain’s NHS does not have the right to deny them. This is meddling government at its worst.
20
Uh, Mark, how is government "meddling?" We've always had a collective voice and power, no matter how long ago. Think tribal councils. And what entity is paying for this? Not the paltry few tax dollars of the Evans. No, everyone else is, and that includes tens of thousands that can live full and better lives by a bit of intervention.
The family needs to come to terms with reality.
3
The post is rife with alt-right newspeak. "These parents have EVERY right..." What does that mean? Is "every right" better than regular rights. The whole thing is a confusion of sloppy English and hyperbole. Governments don't have rights. People have rights which they defer for the purpose of having a government that serves the common good. The government has the "power" to deny them as conferred upon them by the consent of the people that it governs. Calling it "meddling" is simply a linguist technique of using a word has a pejorative connotation.
4
In other words, the parents have every right to prolong a child's suffering? A parent does not 'own' a child and their wishes do not trump the child's best interests, namely to die in as dignified and pain free manner as possible. Again, this has nothing to do with government - it is a court decision.
6
It's the same old story, this pathological unwillingness to accept reality. This unfortunate child was born with a condition that renders his a prisoner of his unresponsive body. I can't imagine a worse fate for anyone, and it is far worse than death. Death is not all that big a deal, it happens to everything that lives.
These parents are striving to keep their child alive, because they're grasping at something that cannot happen. He will never lead a comfortable life, nor one worth living. And what his parents wind up doing is forcing him to remain in that prison, until death finally gives him the only possible escape.
56
I respectfully think that you misunderstand the issue, as you are trying to empathize with the baby.
Nothing says that he is suffering. Nothing says that he his a prisoner of his own body. This is what he has always known and, sorry for the relatively violent words, he is not able to compare it with living a "normal" life.
So from a pure logic point of view, there is no suffering that has to be ended.
My question is, who are you to decide whether someone's life is worth living?
The parents should be able to take him home and the child should not have had water and air withheld.
If the baby was brought to the USA, who would pay the costs? The tax payers, the Vatican, the Pro-lifers? We have plenty of people /children and babies die here because the family can't afford expensive care or the medications to stay healthy.
22
Since the child does not have a proper diagnosis, despite all the usual tests he is "medically interesting". There are very smart doctors engaging in research would would be curious to examine him. Both because they might be able to help him and because his case might help them with their research.
It would be paid for by research budgets. Many grateful patients, myself included, donate significant sums to doctors and hospitals who saved our lives so they can further their own research and advance medicine.
By the way, these doctors have no shortage of patients. They don't have the time or interest in "going through the motions" for the emotional comfort of the parents. They have a waiting room full of sick people and they are not shy about turning away either hopeless cases or people who are not sick enough to be interesting. (I fell in the later category. My cancer was "routine" so the famous specialist I got myself referred to, took one look at my case and handed it to a junior colleague. At first I was offended, but once I realized how desperately ill all the guru's patients were I realized I did NOT want to be one of them :)
Please, citations for that.
The USA isn't involved. Italy has offered to take him.
The NHS has done all that medical science enables them to do. A more kindler, gentler, compassionate service you could not find - they don’t remove care for the sake of it, nor the right to travel. Clearly a flight is going to cause undue suffering - the key is “undue”; unnecessary. Alfie is dying, and once you’re beyond a certain point of no return the focus is on comfort and pain-relief until the end. This is the sad reality of a terminal case; an ill child, two traumatised parents and a team of professionals furiously and futilely trying to save him, played out in front of the cameras for all to watch.
Decisions to withdraw care and refuse travel, like this for poor Alfie, do not happen due to barbarity, “tyranny”, cruelty, lack of empathy, bureaucratic coldness or lack of experts. The poor child is near the end - and no new drugs, Doctors or trips to Rome are going to change that.
32
The doctors also told them he would die within a few hours he has survived for a few days now, tell me again why the parents shouldn't be able to take him to a hospital that would care for him.
And you know this how? Are doctors there infallible? You've let a government agency decide the fate of a child, not the parents. Think about that. What would be so bad if they went to the specialists in Italy for a second opinion? Now they are going to force the child to die by dehydration. Even cutting off his food wasn't quick enough. Just awful.
Can you name the government agency which decided the fate of the child? Because I wasn't aware we had such a government agency and would very much like to go read up their website.
2
Not all parents are good parents or capable of putting their child's needs above their own. That is clearly what is happening here. It's hardly shocking, either, that these cases almost always involve young, poorly educated parents either. They cling to false hope and think everything is going to be alright despite all factual evidence to the contrary. This child is as good as dead. Of course the government should step in and protection the child's right to die in situations like this. Otherwise, you end up with cases like Jahi McMath, where you have a dead body being sustained by machines due to a parent's inability to accept reality.
23
I would urge you to read the story about Jahi which was in the New Yorker earlier this year.
The young woman is not only alive, but showing signs of awareness & being conscious, responding at times to commands.
This has been confirmed by experts, one who stated that while she may at one time been considered brain dead, she is not now.
1
Jahi. Tragically let down by the medical profession when early attention might have prevented her post-surgical trauma, and by a mother who will not allow a barely sentient daughter die in peace. As in this toddler's sad story, it's all about the parents.
3
That is an extremely positive take on that article. She has been responsive, but that does not mean aware or conscious. We think we understand what makes people "alive" but it is horrifically complicated. Jahi is a complicated case, a confusing case, but in no way did that article paint a positive picture.
2
I agree with the government and doctors. This thing about saving human life at all costs is outdated and based on religion that someone dreamed up. It is a form of child abuse to prolong his life if he is suffering badly, and taking him to Italy would apparently prolong the suffering. My opinion
25
This isn't about the parents "owning" this child, or about funding for his health care. The parents seek to do the most they can to prolong and maybe save their child's life, against the wishes of British institutions that say just let him die. Both Italy and Poland have offered assistance to care for this kid. What is wrong with allowing the parents to attempt to save him by moving him to another country's hospital, even if he is likely terminal? This should not come down to the U.K. government being "within its rights." I can't believe the lack of heart I'm reading here.
32
It is not about the government being within its rights, it's about helping a child who is probably in pain and whose condition has been determined to be terminal, to end his suffering.
21
Yet, some other specialists have offered a second opinion. What if the British doctors are wrong? It's been known to happen. The parents should be the ones who decide, not the state.
1
They have not offered a second opinion. The Vatican is basically offering to provide custodial care (the child is in a persistemt vegetative state) - though how long they would allow it is not clear. They are NOT saying they have an alternative treatment for him or offering a different prognosis.
5
I would argue that the UK government is within its rights to refuse further health care for a child that it deems untreatable, but it should not have the right to prohibit the parents from seeking treatment elsewhere, beyond British jurisdiction.
No one has yet diagnosed a specific ailment, and the child is now breathing on his own. It is unclear from the article how Alfie's condition is being assessed.
Alfie may not survive either way, but the countries offering help ought to be beyond the reach of UK rulings.
32
--It is unclear from the article how Alfie’s condition is being assessed.--
But it is clear that the court’s decisions are based on exstensive input from the doctors and hospital. Not all of these (often genetic) disorders can yet be precisely diagnosed, but that doesn’t mean that the outcome is in question.
5
@Pundette: True, but there appears to be a lack of evidence that Alfie is actually suffering, and it is the prolonging of suffering that the court is charged to prevent.
In circumstances where the child is not in pain, the parents should be free to pursue care elsewhere. Otherwise they may wonder all their lives whether they exhausted every possible chance for the survival of their child.
5
The problem in this case is that there's no way to evidence whether or not the child is suffering.
From reading the court ruling, the evidence on MRI scan is that large parts of the child's brain has died and atrophied and been replaced by water. The evidence on EEG is that he has no higher brain activity except for intermittent seizure activity. He still has some brain stem function, as evidenced by the fact that his major organs function, albeit not enough to sustain life.
The neurologists all agree that it is possible he is suffering, although it's also possible, and maybe more likely, he experiences nothing at all.
The judge's ruling is based on those facts: The child is not going to get better even if his body is artificially kept alive, and doing so would only increase the possibility that he may experience pain or fear or discomfort.
1
The truth is that doctors often misdiagnose patients. I know it's happened to me. It's a huge problem. If another hospital is willing to take a look, why not let them?
26
The medical evidence and conclusions have been exhaustively scrutinized in multiple appeals. The medical conclusions are undisputed in this case.
16
If that is so, why are the specialists in Italy offering to help? Even if the diagnoses is correct, why can't the parents take the child for a second opinion? The government has decided the baby should die, not the parents. Deliberately not giving the child food and water. At least give him water! He'll take a few more days to die, but at least he won't suffer as much. I'm amazed at the people here in the comments who have no problem with the government telling parents they cannot even get a second opinion. Unbelievable!
Moira ... there are no specialists in Italy offering to help. They are offering palliative care, which is no different from what the London hospital will do. There are no experts who have offered a different diagnosis or prognosis for this child. It's quite clear he will die; terribly sad but true.
3
Somehow, it seems easier for people to grasp this issue when it comes to animals. If it were your beloved cat or dog, you would never let it suffer endlessly and pointlessly; you would call anyone who wanted the animal to live in pain and anguish very cruel. Well, that is what is going on here, too. The NHS is an excellent health system; their experts have determined that the child's case is terminal and his quality of life zero. They are saying that the humane thing to do is to stop his suffering.
88
Yes, that's the NHS idea. Here is the counter-argument. Why does the NHS (the government) have the right to over-rule the will of the parents?
I see 2 sides to this.
One view - If parents abuse a child, the state has the right to intervene, even to deny parents access to the child. The child's rights supersede that of the parents. In this case the NHS considers the parents' actions, although done with a loving intent, to be abusive to the child, to be causing it distress and suffering.
Another view - People have the right to make their own medical decisions. Those of us who support abortion rights, for example, often use the argument that the government should not be denying women the right to make their own medical choices. So the parents, as guardians, are being denied their right to make medical decisions with respect to their child.
So if you agree that adults should be allowed to make their own medical decisions then the parents in this case should be allowed to make decisions regarding their child... unless the parents are engaging in a form of abuse.
So the fundamental question is whether the parents' efforts in the face of the verdict of medical professionals crosses the line into abuse.
This can only be decided on a case by case basis.
In this case the child doesn't appear to be suffering but imagine a case where the child was clearly suffering, and the parents were refusing to cut off life support? Should the government intercede? Does it have the right?
13
Abortion is not analogous, abortion is a simple, common procedure, it is not medically complex, the outcome is always the same with very rare complications. A layperson can understand what an abortion is, and the outcome and risks are known. An ordinary person with little or no medical knowledge can make this decision, and SHOULD make this decision for herself. A complex medical condition with an extremely poor prognosis is not analogous. The parents do not have the knowledge to make the decision; it's a hard thing to have to swallow but in such a case there's really no choice but to admit the doctors know more than you do and you've pretty much got to listen to them. There is no suggestion that any other care, anywhere else, will help this child. This whole issue is not about "Does government have the right," it's about the welfare of the child.
5
No, the issue if about the government abusing it's power. They want a second opinion from specialists in another country. It won't even cost the government to send him there. Yet, being infallible the NHS with the government backing them has decided the parents don't even have the right to a second opinion. That people agree with this is beyond horrible.
Why does the government have the say to save or forsake a life?
6
Look at a different scenario.
Parents are abusive to a child and are causing it suffering. Does the state have the right to intervene?
Of course it does and it happens all the time. The state steps in because the rights of the child supersede that of the parents.
Unless you believe that the rights of the parents are absolute and that the state should not be allowed to intervene EVER, even in cases where the child is experiencing physical suffering, then there are situations in which the state should intervene.
The question is - is this one of those situations?
The issue is not black and white. The question is where to draw the line.
How seriously is this particular child suffering? What are its chances of recovery if the parents take it for medical attention elsewhere?
If the suffering is extreme and chances of recovery are extremely small, then the parents' actions are causing the child suffering and the state may have the right to intervene. If, on the other hand, the suffering is minor and there is a small but possible chance for the child's recovery, then I would argue the situation does not warrant state intervention.
So ... is it a black or white issue? And if not, if it is shades of grey, how and where do we draw the line?
7
Why do some in the US government want control of womens' right to have a legal abortion and want to deny that right?
5
Government often has the power of life and death over its citizens and foreign antagonists. It's unfortunate but a necessary condition to keep humans cooperative.
1
To understand the mentality of the decision maker one has to look at the historical basis of the courts claims to have the final say of what is “in the best interests” of a person or in this case, a child. The prerogative of the crown ( can do no wrong) seems to still pervade the jurisdiction despite relatively recent supposedly modernization of the law in the UK.
If other medical professionals are prepared to treat this child then why not allow the parents to fulfill their natural role.
10
What on earth does the Royal Prerogative have to do with this case? BTW it does not mean 'can do no wrong'.
3
You know this case has been heard in the European courts as well? Are they influence by crown prerogative (which also has nothing to do with this case)
1
I read a very informative article during the time of the Charlie case that helped me to understand this situation better. There is a belief in Great Britain that children are human beings, capable of happiness and pain, and independent individuals from their parents. According to the law, people do not own other people. The law states no individual should be put to senseless pain and suffering. All of these children in each of these cases knew only pain. Years of prolonged, unending pain with absolutely no hope for recovery. And their parents, not wanting to let them go, were willing to subject them to more. It is tragic, and it is awful, but the courts have ruled that even if you are a parent and this is your child, you are not allowed to subject another human being to a lifetime of unrelenting agony. The right of an individual who is suffering without end to a natural death is their own. No one elses, no matter how sad it may be.
155
Alfie Evans is not in “unremitting agony.” Neither was Charlie Gard. Please read the courts’ findings of fact in both cases.
The judges, after hearing evidence, both acknowledged that evidence of pain and suffering of these children was limited, most likely, to the discomfort of intubation. Instead, the rulings were based primarily on what one judge called “the futility of Alfie’s life” and the conclusion expressed by the other judge that “Charlie’s current quality of life should not be sustained.”
Those may be entirely legitimate conclusions justifying the rulings under British law. They are not findings of unremitting agony.
https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/alder-hey-v-evan...
https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/gosh-v-yates-and...
6
The Pope and the Polish need to stay out of matters of State as well. How are they any different than those who advocate for Shariah Law? One doctor, or a few might be wrong, but there is a whole medical system involved in this child’s care and they likely know more than the Pope or the Pole.
And Ted Cruz should shut his mouth--that child wouldn’t be likely to have survived at all in the US if he didn’t have insurance.
British Law is correct, parents do not “own” their children and sometimes they are dead--and even deadLY--wrong.
12
I've read up on this case too. It's not that simple. The doctors who claim certainty about the boys fate, do not even have a proper diagnosis or explanation of what has happened to him.
Not all doctors are equally skilled, or have access to the same resources.
If the doctors don't have an explanation, why should they be allowed to prevent the parents from taking their child to another hospital to get a second opinion?
There are cases where the state should intervene and side with the doctors in the best interests of the child. But the standard has to be that the doctors have a clear diagnosis, and an appropriate therapy that offers a reasonable chance for a cure. If the parents are refusing it irrationally, the courts should intervene.
In this case the doctors have no diagnosis, and they are not offering a cure, only a speedier death.
We should at least consider that the doctors may be more concerned with their own reputation and liability, than with the baby's best interest.
After all, it would not look good for them if a specialist in Italy or Rome found a diagnosis, when they couldn't. It would be even worse, if they were to show that medical errors early in the case contributed to the sad outcome.
But we can't learn from those mistakes if we cover them up.
2
Sanity reigns.
Let’s not spend millions of dollars that could feed, clothe and care for hundreds of children,
in order to prolong the life of a soon deceased child already in a vegetative state.
45
But what if the funds to preserve the life of that child are NOT state funds, but are the personal funds of the parents or donors?
5
Look, the origin of the funding is utterly irrelevant. The child's welfare is the issue. Further treatment can't help this child, it can only increase his suffering. That's not okay.
9
J Jencks, your very thoughtful commentary is micj appreciated
The UK court ruling to turn off toddler Alfie Evan's life support redirected futile care in a childt with no hope of recovery towards one with serious but reversible illness or injury.
This improves equity and access to expensive treatments for a second child. There is no doubt that the ethical, moral and legal quandaries of whether to withdraw ventilator support from a child dependent on machine-assisted breathing are stressful for families and critical care staff.
Ongoing physiological support, as decisions on treatment withdrawal are being deliberated in courts of law, necessarily delays the availability of scarce intensive care beds to others. Other seriously sick children cannot afford to wait for all-round resolution between families, clinicians and courts.
Surely the high cost of intensive care and the diversion of scarce funds from other health- care programmes bears serious thought even in times of immense crisis.
The health system cannot afford the thousands of pounds spent each day in prolonging the months-long suffering of a child with a severe neurodegenerative illness.
In the remote event that Alfie had been weaned off the ventilator and allowed prohibitively costly access to the novel treatment his parents had demanded, he would likely have been condemned to full nursing care for the rest of his natural life.
Joseph Ting, adjunct associate professor, School of Public Health and Social Work, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
14
"The health system cannot afford the thousands of pounds spent each day in prolonging the months-long suffering of a child with a severe neurodegenerative illness."
This is obfuscating. It is not clear beyond doubt that what is being done is prolonging his suffering. Maybe he is not suffering. Maybe he would get better. Maybe he is suffering currently but would overcome his problem with more help, or different help. The question of practicality and budgets needs to stand alone from a judgment that the money spent is for nothing, made without definitive proof. What you are really saying is that the expense to care for such a child is too great for the small chance that he may pull through. This is an arguable position, but one needs to be clear about what exactly is at stake. This is a moral issue.
13
Joseph, I think you're missing the most important point. In my mind there is no question that in a state funded medical system, or even in one funded by private insurance companies, so long as doctors are making the medical decisions the state has the right to withdraw its financing of hopeless medical procedures. The state funds must indeed be put towards other children.
But what if the parents and private donors are willing to fund the treatment, which seems to be the case here?
The state is not even ALLOWING the parents to continue the child's treatment if they pay for it themselves. Does, or should, the state have the right to make such an important decision in the lives of individuals? This is the more fundamental question, and the real issue of this case?
5
" Does, or should, the state have the right to make such an important decision in the lives of individuals? " - and by "individuals," you mean the parents. You're not thinking of the child.
2
Remember this child? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/world/europe/uk-charlie-gard-parents....®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article
Same story, same outcome. NHS refuses to continue care. Other countries offer care, UK courts refuse, child dies, NHS continues its tyrannical reign. When is the next revolution in Britain?
3
I believe the British have this right. Children aren't the possession of their parents. There are times when parents either do not have their children's best interests at heart, and other times when the parents are loving and want the best for their child but do not have the perspective to understand what is best. I think that's the case here, and it was the same type of situation with Charlie Gard. What the parents are going through is heartbreaking - but unfortunately if there isn't any medical hope for the child the doctors are right that it is in his best interests to be allowed to end his suffering.
32
Tyranny, Tyranny, Tyranny. Nothing but state sponsored murder. While NHS should be able to determine care as the child's medical professionals, the parents should absolutely have authority to place their child under the care of different medical professionals, even in a different country, so long as NHS is not required to pay for it. There are clearly other medical professionals in other countries willing to assist and there is no rationale for UK courts to prevent this. I am thankful that my forefathers fought and died to rid my country of this tyranny so that I will never be in the position this family is in.
23
"there is no rationale for UK courts to prevent this" - Yes, there is: the child's best interests. It comes down to whether you believe parents own their children, like property, or whether society has a stake in children's well-being - actually a responsibility - to step in to help the child when the parents can't or won't.
58
No-one disputes that what dictates in cases like these is the doctrine of the child's best interest. The question is: who gets to decide what is the child's best interest? The parents or the courts? While arguments are reasonable on either side, I strongly favor the parents. The parents, while not infallible, are in a much better position to know and act upon what is in their child's best interest than a detached court who likely has never even personally met the child. If the parents want to seek expert medical care elsewhere, it is egregious that the courts should be able to bar them from seeking expert care for their child. The parents should certainly be able to seek expert medical care outside the country if they believe that is what is in their child's best interest.
6
When it comes to complex and serious medical conditions, obviously the parents are not at all able to determine what is in their child's best interests. That takes medical experts. If the parents refuse to listen to the experts - and in so doing are working against their child's interests, because he is suffering and has no chance of recovery - that is when it's appropriate for the courts to make a ruling. (No one disputes that under ordinary circumstances, it is parents who make most decisions on behalf of their minor children.)
4
Sometimes parents are not bright enough to grasp the realities of the illness, injury OR treatment. And sometimes, they just refuse to accept reality. NO society can afford to spend enormous sums of money in a futile effort at treatment. It's always a cost/ benefit analysis, even when we don't want to admit it. Plus, if there's any question of prolonging suffering, it's always better to let them go. Gently. First, do no harm. Secondly, don't cause pain or extend suffering. Just saying.
43
It is the *doctors* not the parents who do NOT understand what is wrong with the boy! (the parents don't either, but they are acting rationally to try to find out)
That situation takes the wind out of the sails of the 'let him die' argument.
Medical science would not advance, if desperately ill patients did not volunteer for research and clinical trials.
If the boy is not actively suffering, why shouldn't he be taken to see leading physicians for a second opinion? There is a reasonable chance they might help him, or at least explain what happened. There is also a reasonable chance the experts might learn something from his case.
Funny how Italy rushed to give this kid citizenship but leave African migrants who come to their shores seeking a better life to wither and suffer in the shadows. Hmm. As an aside, this child's parents (understandably) nonsensical refusal to heed evidence and reason is a sad result of societies refusal to teach people the basics of evolution and genetics. Nature is as benevolent as it is cruel.
108
It seems that in Britain, physicians can substitute their judgement of what is in the child's best interests, for that of the parents, in an end of life situation. I assume in Alfie's situation, the physicians believe further treatment would be painful and futile. If the parents of a very sick child believed that more treatment of their child was futile and painful, and asked that treatment be stopped, would physicians be able, legally, to ignore that request and continue treatment?
I would like to understand the jurisprudence that has led up to this legal conclusion that physicians and health care professionals are better positioned than parents to decide what is best for a child.
1
While I generally agree with your sentiment that medical professionals should be allowed to overrule parents to prevent unnecessary harm, there are clearly other medical professionals that disagree with the UK physicians in this case. Why else would physicians from other countries be supporting the child's move to another country's care?
2
Feel free to read it in full, the cases were held in open court and are published online.
The pundits arguing to extend the poor kids suffering clearly haven't bothered.
4
They are offering palliative care only, there is nothing else to offer. If he went to Italy he'd be put back on a ventilator until whatever has destroyed his brain finishes killing him.
His parents have a dedicated and well funded legal team, the reason no alternative diagnoses or viable treatments have been presented in the protracted legal proceedings is that there are none.
10
Actions don't make sense, unless the NHS is eager to harvest transplant organs. That might be justified, if other desperately ill babies can be saved, but it's immoral to not be up front about it or try to do it without parental consent.
NHS can give up, and refuse to pay for additional care, but not letting him leave to seek care elsewhere is wrong. If they don't have to pay for it, it's none of their business!
12
To my mind it comes down to physical suffering. In the same way that the state has the right to remove a child from parents who are beating him, the state should have the right--if there's no chance of recovery--to relieve the child of his pain by removing life supports. It's not clear to me whether this baby is physically suffering, but parents don't get to choose suffering if there will be no end of it.
19
In my mind, what the courts and authorities have done here borders on tyranny.
There really is no excuse.
6
Unless you are a medical professional who specializes in infant semi-vegetative, or permanent vegetative states, you really have no idea what you are talking about.
In the medical community, extraordinary measures are taken to study and understand these states, and how they affect consciousness and wakefulness.
Opening of the eyes, squeezing of the hand, even emitting sounds - none of this means that a child is conscious or wakeful, or can register anything at all. There are real, loving, kind, and very smart humans taking care of this baby - they are not tyrannical, nor is the judge. It is just an awful, confusing situation that is beyond heartbreaking, not only because a child is probably already legally dead, but because it also enables others to lay blame where blame doesn't belong
121
It's as if you think the doctors really don't want him to get better, and are refusing him life-saving treatment. You simply don't understand the situation.
30
DW, I understand it well enough to know the doctors do NOT have a proper diagnosis for what is wrong with the boy and that they are preventing him from seeing specialists in other countries who might be able to explain what is wrong with him.
Is that not correct? If it is, what more do I need to know?
The most important aspect of this case from a US policy perspective is that, under UK law, the hospital makes all of the decisions about whether to continue or discontinue life-prolonging care, as well as whether the parents will be permitted to take the child out of the country for care somewhere else, even if it is done at no cost to Britain's National Health Service.
This is, from an American point of view, the dark side of the UK's National Health Service. On one hand, the cost of healthcare is borne by the government. On the other hand, parents have only limited input into the type of care their children receive.
This is only the most recent of a series of cases like this, and it sometimes seems a little paternalistic or even Orwellian.
23
This is just simply untrue.
The court’s decision is agnostic of whether the healthcare being provided is public or private.
What you might be trying to say is that the medical decision is wrong as public healthcare is less informed than private healthcare, but this is unfair. At this level and with this much scrutiny the NHS ranks just as high as any other leading healthcare authority in the world.
77
It isn't accurate to say parents only have "limited input" into their child's care in the UK. That's simply not the case, nor was it the case here. The parents, from other articles I've read, have had vast input. But, in this final stage, their input isn't what defines life according to the law.
Once parents and medical professionals begin disagreeing, it is usually the medial professionals who somehow get the blame. It must be unbearable for these parents, but, no matter now much the parents know about the health of their child, they are not medical experts.
We pay medical professionals to listen to us, to heal us, to tell us the truth. Except when it's a truth we don't want to hear.
67
No, no, just NO. The decisions are being made by the courts according to the best interests of the child as opposed to the wishes of the parents. The courts are looking at the medical facts. What is paternalistic, is thinking that parents own their children like cattle and can do what they wish with them.
12