Alfie Evans has died

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I don’t think anyone objects to parents looking at different treatment options for their child but sometimes the answer should be no.
 
i am sad this horrific tragedy has come up in this overly political context

why doesn’t a mod just start a thread; WHICH NATION IS BETTER: UK or USA?

i’ll post there; no holds barred
 
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Pup7, this is not the same as neglect cases and you know it. The child was not in pain…not suffering. He had probably been on pain medication since being admitted. The parents have a right to choice in healthcare for their child.
 
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Insurance companies can’t tell you to delay something that is medically necessary. (At least in theory.)

With private insurance, you are free to choose your own plan and company. You are not stuck with whatever the government tells you. There are far fewer instances where you can be refused treatment due to preexisting conditions. You can choose your hospital and your Doctors which you can’t do under socialism.

You won’t be the 50 year old person with 4 or 5 health ailments who is suddenly refused treatment because you didn’t take care of yourself properly.

You won’t have to worry about eugenics like you are starting to see in socialist countries like Iceland. Gotta kill those Downs Syndrome fetuses.

Do you really want the same people running your health care that run the post office.
 
Respectfully, this isn’t true. There’s no choice (you have to have it) or competition (you take what your employer offers) in private insurance. Insurance companies can and do decide what they will or will not cover. They can and do deny life-saving treatment. You can choose your doctor or hospital only if you can afford to go out of network. We’re straying off topic. I’ll leave this one alone.
 
Monica83 said:
Pup7, this is not the same as neglect cases and you know it. The child was not in pain…not suffering. He had probably been on pain medication since being admitted. The parents have a right to choice in healthcare for their child.
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No, it is the same thing. It’s exactly the same thing. The only thing I read is “the parents have the right to choose for their child and it is not the Court’s decision”.

The principle is precisely the same, 100%. So no, I don’t know that.

Please, provide me with evidence the brain stem does not process pain (it can), and provide me with evidence he was not suffering. You have proof of neither.
 
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You are continuing to miss the point in Idaho. The Government is not refusing to give medical care to anyone.

The parents are making that decision. This iss
 
Look up the cases where chemotherapy has been denied. Where kids are denied blood transfusions. No, not in Idaho, either. That’s just an example of a bizarre codification that needs to be removed.

The state IS saying the parents have the right to refuse medical care. I’m not continuing to miss a thing. All I said was in some states it is LEGAL to deny lifesaving medical care based on the religious values of the parents. And that is, as we say, mission creep on the part of the state. They have no right to refuse medical care to anyone - and yet it’s codified that it’s okay.
 
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blackforest said:
Respectfully, this isn’t true. There’s no choice (you have to have it) or competition (you take what your employer offers) in private insurance. Insurance companies can and do decide what they will or will not cover. They can and do deny life-saving treatment. You can choose your doctor or hospital only if you can afford to go out of network. We’re straying off topic. I’ll leave this one alone.
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I was just answering her question. I don’t want to go down this rabbit hole either. I can take you on point by point, but lets save that for another day.
 
You’d lose, so I’m waiting for the thread for that opportunity.

Have a blessed day. I’m off to Mass at the Cathedral.

Thread muted.
 
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Pup7 said:
Look up the cases where chemotherapy has been denied. Where kids are denied blood transfusions. No, not in Idaho, either. That’s just an example of a bizarre codification that needs to be removed.

The state IS saying the parents have the right to refuse medical care. I’m not continuing to miss a thing. All I said was in some states it is LEGAL to deny lifesaving medical care based on the religious values of the parents. And that is, as we say, mission creep on the part of the state. They have no right to refuse medical care to anyone - and yet it’s codified that it’s okay.
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The entire point of this controversy is government rights vs. individual freedom. It is the right of the state to refuse medical treatment vs. the family wanting to continue medical treatment.

This is the entire controversy in a nutshell.
 
My son developed a high fever at four days. We had to take him into hospital for tests and I was permitted to sleep at the hospital. I brought a small luninous statue of Our Lady to remind her to watch over him. He had many tests, like regular pricking of his heels, and he was put on medication. One day when I returned from a hasty lunch the pediatrician was there, demonstrating to a group of students how to do certain tests. David, my son was double jointed and the pediatritian kept insisting that he was ‘floppy’ (NOT TRUE ) As soon as David heard my voice he told me his distress, by starting to cry.
The medication caused him to have diarrhoea, and to my astonishment, instead of stopping the medication, they began to take samples of the diarrhoea for testing.
I rang my husband and told him to bring clothes for David early next morning, and while no one was looking we got him dressed.The staff noticed that we were taking him and tried to block the main door. - We just walked past - I couldn’t believe it.
I still hadn’t recovered from a difficult labour and started to have spells when it seemed that my heart was about to stop.
A day or two later our GP (general practitioner ) knocked at the door to shout at me and tell us that we would be struck off his list. After he left I had another frightening spell.
David had been on a formula and I’d been reading up about alternatives. So we started him on goats’ milk. After that he was right as rain, though he was prone to high temperatures when he had any infections.
When he was eighteen months old he had some childhood illness and we found ourselves back at the hospital for a day visit. We were sitting in a room waiting for a nurse, when the same pediatritian was walking by. He spotted us and came in, looked at David, who, by then was a sturdy toddler and remarked, in a scathing tone " Must be nice to be right " and walked out.
Shortly after that my GP told me that we had done the right thing in bringing David home.
 
paperwight said:
I really don’t know why the facts aren’t getting through to people. .

Let me spell it out again.

He wasn’t going to get better. Most of his brain had been destroyed. Brains don’t re-grow. There was no treatment, only care.

There was not even the slimmest chance of a recovery.

Is that clearer now?
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Let me spell it out to you.

Even if he was not going to get better, he should be afforded ordinary care including nutrition and hydration which he processed for 8 months following the initial decision to remove them.

In a different hospital they would not have removed these ordinary care measures.

The right of the parents to seek care elsewhere was denied without one shred of evidence that the parents were in any way incapable of making that decision. A decision that the Pope, and countless medical and ethics experts also concurred.

Did he die as a result of the hospital removing hydration and nutrition (and later restarting them)? We may never know.

We do know he had survived 8 months processing the nutrition following the hospital’s decision that he should be denied them, and only died shortly after the hospital removed them for a time.
 
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He was most likely on strong(narcotic) pain medication. I doubt he experienced many moments of pain unless they cut back on it to test a pain response.
 
Pup7 said:
It is EXACTLY the same thing - it is the court making decisions in place of parents. And after all, parents are always correct, right?
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Neither are the health care professional always correct.
Neither are the courts always correct.

As Catholics we have the duty to err on the side of life. We also respect the God given right of parents to make these difficult decisions unless it can be proven they are endangering the child.

In this case not all the doctors agreed.
The parent’s wishes should have been respected.
Alfie should also not have had ordinary care denied.
 
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Pup7 said:
For the nth time - anyone who thinks HM’s Court should not have stepped in needs to be sure they back parental rights in this country (the US) to deny medical care to a sick child (it happens, and in some states, it is 100% legal to do so - Idaho is one) based on religious preference, and be sure they vote to keep the court out of the decision making.

It is EXACTLY the same thing - it is the court making decisions in place of parents. And after all, parents are always correct, right?
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They are different in an important aspect.
  1. The Idaho law gives the parents the right to refuse medical treatment for their child. In other states, the state is allowed to intervene to help save the child over the objections of the parents.
    This was not the same situation for Alfie.
    The judiciary intervened not to obtain treatment (or care) for the child, but to ensure that he did not receive treatment (or care)…over the parent’s objections.
They are not equivalent situations. The state upholding the parent’s decision to not seek treatment is not the same as denying the parent’s decision to seek out treatment.
 
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Members of the newly founded John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family (JAHLF), which has been partly established by former members of the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV), have decided to publish a statement in defense of Alfie Evans and his parents, Tom Evans and Kate James. The following members – who are either Board Members, Advisory Board Members, or simple members – have signed the text below:

Professor Josef Seifert (President), Doyen Nguyen, M.D., S.T.D, Paul A Byrne MD,
No man and woman of good will can remain indifferent watching the plight of Alfie Evans and his parents – their heroic battle against the tyranny of a medico-legal alliance.
The 23 month-old boy has remained alive for two days breathing on his own after having been removed from ventilator support on 22/04/18. He was granted Italian citizenship, and a medical air-ambulance was ready to take him to the Bambino Gesù Hospital in Rome for continued appropriate supportive care.
Yet the High Court of Manchester has ruled on 23/04/18 that the child will not be allowed to fly to Italy!
Is not the most obvious question that should prick our collective conscience: Who has the natural right to care for Alfie and safeguard his best interest? Is it the state or the child’s parents? It is self-evident that parents, by virtue of the parent-child relationship, have the natural right to act in the best interest and welfare of their child; and the exercise of this right cannot be unjustly denied by coercive state interference except in cases of abuse and neglect.
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The second question which should prick our collective conscience is this: What does “best interest” refer to? To act in the best interest of someone is to will his or her good. The most fundamental good in this earthly life is none other than life itself, of which the most foundational dimension is the biological (vegetative) life. Who is the author of life if not the Creator God Himself? No human being is the author of his own life. The most basic human right is the right to life, and therefore the most fundamental duty of all men and women of good will is to safeguard human life from its very beginning to its natural end. Alfie’s right to life and his parents’ right to do what is in the best interest of their son mean that they must be allowed to fly to the Bambino Gesù Hospital.

From the above considerations, it is evident that the action of the High Court is a clear violation of basic human rights, both of the right to life and the natural right of parents. In what way then is the Court fulfilling its function as an instrument of justice?
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