Should the Government or the Patient Decide What is Medically Necessary

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I’m not asking you to re-hash it. I’m dealing in concepts, not specifics. I don’t know the case or have a horse in that race. There are situations when obviously, the family should choose. But I can see times when obviously the doctors/authorities should choose.
 
I didn’t say it wasn’t a case that didn’t.

I said that teaching doesn’t apply to Alfie’s medical condition. That that teaching and Alfie has nothing to do with a bioethical issue after you told me I’m no expert in it. The two aren’t related.

I edited the earlier post and I apologize.
 
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The concepts are in the decisions, which is why I said that. If you’re asking what and why care was handled in a specific way in that case, that’s where you need to look. Because they vary from patient to patient. It’s the nature of medicine.
 
Sure, sure. I know.

That’s what I mean. In some cases, I can see that the family should get to choose. Some cases, no, they shouldn’t.
 
NCBC Ethicist and Director of Education, Father Tad Pachoczyk, made a special appearance on EWTN’s The World Over with Raymond Arroyo. Father Tad spoke at length with Raymond about the Alfie Evans Case in Britain, and also discussed human cloning and physician-assisted suicide…
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Before Alfie died this interview was taped, the link below has the video posted on the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) site…

https://www.ncbcenter.org/resources/news/alfie-evans-case-fr-tad-raymond-arroyo-world-over1/

Many of the issues discussed on this thread (and others) are addressed.
 
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http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-p...nts/hf_jp-ii_spe_20040320_congress-fiamc.html
ADDRESS OF JOHN PAUL II
TO THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS
ON “LIFE-SUSTAINING TREATMENTS AND VEGETATIVE STATE:
SCIENTIFIC ADVANCES AND ETHICAL DILEMMAS”

Saturday, 20 March 2004
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The obligation to provide the “normal care due to the sick in such cases” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Iura et Bona, p. IV) includes, in fact, the use of nutrition and hydration (cf. Pontifical Council “Cor Unum”, Dans le Cadre, 2, 4, 4; Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, Charter of Health Care Workers, n. 120). The evaluation of probabilities, founded on waning hopes for recovery when the vegetative state is prolonged beyond a year, cannot ethically justify the cessation or interruption of minimal care for the patient, including nutrition and hydration. Death by starvation or dehydration is, in fact, the only possible outcome as a result of their withdrawal. In this sense it ends up becoming, if done knowingly and willingly, true and proper euthanasia by omission.

In this regard, I recall what I wrote in the Encyclical Evangelium Vitae, making it clear that “by euthanasia in the true and proper sense must be understood an action or omission which by its very nature and intention brings about death, with the purpose of eliminating all pain”; such an act is always “a serious violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person” (n. 65).

Besides, the moral principle is well known, according to which even the simple doubt of being in the presence of a living person already imposes the obligation of full respect and of abstaining from any act that aims at anticipating the person’s death.
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I watched some of this. He seems to have a vendetta against ‘socialised medicine’ (horses for courses, I’ll agree to differ there, but I doubt Alfie would have fared better in the US).

He never mentioned WHY they didnt want to move Alfie (fear of increased suffering and seizures with no benefit) and suggested it was a power play by the hospital… I stopped listening at that point.

He doesn’t have any more facts than we do on what care plan the hospital had for Alfie.
 
“Why did they stop giving her food and water?”

Since nutrition and hydration are basic human needs, we often feel an overwhelming desire to give our dying loved ones food and water. However, when death is imminent, food and water are unnecessary and may even add to the person’s suffering. Fluid that cannot be eliminated because the body is physiologically unable is likely to pool in the lungs and other parts of the body. This leads to undue pain and discomfort.

At the end stage of life, the urinary system becomes dysfunctional. As a result, the patient may experience bladder and/or loin pain, urinary tract infections, incontinence or urinary retention, fever, agitation, confusion, and decreased urinary output that is darkly coloured.

Also in the final days of life, the palliative patient is unable to clear respiratory secretions because fluid pools in the hypopharynx. The result is noisy, moist breathing commonly known as the death rattle. As well, there can be a build-up of fluid in the lungs making breathing more difficult.

If the patient is conscious, he has very little, if any, interest in food. Often the patient requires little or no food or fluid intake for days. As his body continues to shut down, he has no further need for nutrients.

Because of these natural changes, nutrition and hydration are withdrawn in the final stage. This may cause much distress to family and friends. Pope St. John Paul II was asked to comment on this topic in 2004. He replied that nutrition and hydration “should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory, insofar as and until it is seen to have attained its proper finality.” By including the phrase: “insofar as and until it is seen to have attained its proper finality,” the Pope acknowledged that providing nutrition and hydration is not always prudent. There comes a time when the proper course of action, and the one that provides the most comfort, is to withdraw hydration and nutrition.

https://catholicinsight.com/palliative-care-from-a-catholic-moral-perspective/
 
The bureaucracy is usurping parents’ rights and responsibilities.

www.patheos.com

What Alfie Evans Unlocked

Now that little Alfie Evans has joined the angels, it is worth looking again at what really happened in this event. We saw something extraordinary emerge.
www.patheos.com www.patheos.com

excerpt:

So beneath the tragedy of the terminally ill baby boy was brewing another societal story which we would do well not to ignore.

The drama of “Alfie’s Army” should be seen as part of a larger social phenomenon connecting with the Brexit vote, the Trump victory and the rising nationalist movements across Europe.

To put it simply, the ordinary folks have had enough. They have had enough of governmental over reach. They’ve had enough of the liberal, “tolerant” ruling classes who are, in fact, increasingly totalitarian. They’ve had enough of the technocrats invading their privacy. They’ve had enough of the immoral new morality–of naked men cavorting in Pride parades and little boys being castrated and pumped full of drugs because they think they might be girls.

They’ve had enough of the seemingly helpful and compassionate welfare state who end up controlling the individual and reducing them to dependent drones. They’ve had enough of global economic systems, big government, multi national companies and the control of the techno media.

They’ve had enough, but they also realize their ultimate impotence. How do you fight this nameless, formless global oligarchy? How do you fight against a totalitarianism that smiles, does glossy PR campaigns and seems to be ushering in a brave new world order? How do you fight against the media giants, the multinationals, the big government, the unelected swamp lords or the army of sincere do gooders that are controlling your world? How do you fight against the domineering well meaning social worker and the bureaucracy behind her?

The totalitarianism we are facing in our age is one that is completely different from communism and fascism. They wear business suits, not SS uniforms. They control the world with laptops and apps, not machine guns and tanks. They persecute with lawsuits not the Gulag. They will manipulate and control with their ideologies and propaganda, but it is done through game shows, reality TV, the broadcast news and the respectable BBC.

That is what Alfie’s Evans unlocked. This is what Alfie’s Army was really about, and that is what the Trump win was really about and that is what Brexit was really about.

It is about the rising rage of the ordinary folks, and the folks on the top of the heap would do well to listen and channel that rage because the more they try to suppress it the greater it will become.

Image Catholic News Agency
 
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Fr Longenecker’s apocalyptic comments are, of course, about the reaction to this case, not about the case itself.
 
I don’t think keeping a person on a ventilator would prevent a person’s death if it was imminent from a certain condition(and not merely the side effects from it), so I’m unsure why they took him off of it and it does not seem morally just to do such a thing if pain is controlled (and its very hard to NOT be able to control pain with the medications we have available today.)

Even on hospice, we do not take away the interventions like oxygen if that is what helps them breathe comfortably and the ventilator was what helped Alfie breathe comfortably. He died because he could no longer breathe comfortably and he was probably snowed with medication on top of that which slowed his respiration even more.
 
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I think it’s a little unrealistic to expect someone with Edwards syndrome to still be alive at 15.
 
You may not have noticed, but that article was referring to a case FOURTEEN years ago!
 
Bella Santorum(daughter of former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum)is still alive. Shes 10 years old now.
 
Well, I guess the U.S. was willing to help Bella Santorum 10 years ago despite her being deemed “incompatible with life”. Why is the U.S. so willing to help these disabled kids first?
 
One disabled child that happens to be the daughter of a former Senator? Are you kidding? I am not sure the whole rules, but if you spend enough time in Congress, you get gold plated benefits for life. He is well known, so he could use a very large soapbox a poor family would not have.
 
The NHS does treat children with these disorders as far as possible.
 
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