Alfie Evans and the end of the myth of the UK as a free country.

[Fisherking]

Monty, that is admirable research you put together but in these cases it only goes to prove the assertion I made in the title of this thread.

Why? Because they are arbitrary conditions set to check Liberty. Freedom to choose. There is no criminal act here. No act which upsets the order of society. The court could have as well found that the public can shop at M&S but not Tesco.

These cases point to a level of arrogance and paranoia that are nearly unimaginable. Would you question a doctor who took you to court for wishing a second opinion from another qualified physician? That to seek one could mean you would or could be tortured? They call into question the rest of the worlds ability to practice medicine. Are the physicians of other counties less compassionate or less dedicated? Is their only care the profit motive?

These cases may well seem hopeless but what does it matter. All the more reason for those involved to seek other opinions, if for no other reason than peace of mind.

It has resulted in those persons involved as being treated as Wards of the State and not as free people able to choose their own way in life. The statutes and their conditions only point this up.

[Gilrandir]

No, that's wrong. I was in court once and there was no jury.

Because it was a tennis court?

[Montmorency]

Monty, that is admirable research you put together but in these cases it only goes to prove the assertion I made in the title of this thread.

Why? Because they are arbitrary conditions set to check Liberty. Freedom to choose. There is no criminal act here. No act which upsets the order of society. The court could have as well found that the public can shop at M&S but not Tesco.

These cases point to a level of arrogance and paranoia that are nearly unimaginable. Would you question a doctor who took you to court for wishing a second opinion from another qualified physician? That to seek one could mean you would or could be tortured? They call into question the rest of the worlds ability to practice medicine. Are the physicians of other counties less compassionate or less dedicated? Is their only care the profit motive?

These cases may well seem hopeless but what does it matter. All the more reason for those involved to seek other opinions, if for no other reason than peace of mind.

It has resulted in those persons involved as being treated as Wards of the State and not as free people able to choose their own way in life. The statutes and their conditions only point this up.

Isn't criminality arbitrary?

The NHS cooperated with and even paid for the parents' second opinions in this case. Everyone agreed with the first opinions on the prognosis, the difference was over the "end of life" care.

Again, the deeper question is: do you see any circumstance in which a state (-run healthcare system) should or may overrule a caretaker in their decision on behalf of the ward to withhold, reject, or terminate
(1) a treatment or practice
(2) matriculation into this or parallel system?

[Husar]

( @Husar: The German Dr. Haas, and considerations around his advisements and testimony in this case, suggest to me that the German healthcare system is likely to act in a way that maintains the child or disabled patient on life support indefinitely:

Respond?

)

According to the last paragraph in this article, yes: https://www.zeit.de/wissen/gesundhei...rechte-medizin

It says German doctors and courts usually decide for life support for as long as possible because the right to life is seen as especially worthy of protection here. Then again, given the rare disease in this case, I'm not sure we've had (m)any comparable cases in Germany. It says doctors here treat patients for as long as there is hope of improvement, however minuscule it is. The article is about the Gard case where there was a slim chance of treatment with the experimental method, the given case of this thread seems to have had no such chance.
It also doesn't necessarily mean that they would let the parents do whatever they want with the child regarding alternative treatments and so on.

It has resulted in those persons involved as being treated as Wards of the State and not as free people able to choose their own way in life.

The state tends to do that if the parents don't have the best interests of the child in mind. The child cannot act as a free person and make decisions, although I guess you could free it of all the tubes the doctors inserted and see what it does by its own free will...

[Montmorency]

According to the last paragraph in this article, yes: https://www.zeit.de/wissen/gesundhei...rechte-medizin

It says German doctors and courts usually decide for life support for as long as possible because the right to life is seen as especially worthy of protection here. Then again, given the rare disease in this case, I'm not sure we've had (m)any comparable cases in Germany. It says doctors here treat patients for as long as there is hope of improvement, however minuscule it is. The article is about the Gard case where there was a slim chance of treatment with the experimental method, the given case of this thread seems to have had no such chance.
It also doesn't necessarily mean that they would let the parents do whatever they want with the child regarding alternative treatments and so on.



The state tends to do that if the parents don't have the best interests of the child in mind. The child cannot act as a free person and make decisions, although I guess you could free it of all the tubes the doctors inserted and see what it does by its own free will...

I think the UK courts are aware that there is (or think there ought to be) a high threshold to overriding parental autonomy. But the legislators have clearly been of the position that parental autonomy is not unlimited. It isn't even in the US (though we do a terrible job of replacing it, since the kids are typically poor and/or dark).

Again from the Supreme Court Evans appeal rejection; this is addressing the appellants attempt to compare* the courts' decisions wrt Alfie to "care proceedings" (analogous to child abuse/neglect proceedings in the US) that find "significant harm" to children as a consequence of parental action/inaction, outlining probably the consensus orientation of government:

*That is, the argument that the court doesn't have jurisdiction to make "best interests" judgements because they should have to prove "significant harm", i.e. active abuse/neglect.

For in such proceedings a powerful extra objective is in play, namely to avoid social engineering. These are proceedings by the state to remove a child from his parents. Families need protection from too ready a removal of him. It might be arguable that a child growing up in many households today would be better off elsewhere. But Parliament has provided that that should not be a strong enough reason for removing him. Significant harm must be established.

The present proceedings are quite different; and the gold standard needs to apply to them without qualification. Doctors need to know what the law requires of them. The founding rule is that it is not lawful for them (or any other medical team) to give treatment to Alfie which is not in his interests. A decision that, although not in his best interests, Alfie's continued ventilation can lawfully continue because (perhaps) it is not causing him significant harm would be inconsistent with the founding rule.

We are satisfied that the current law of England and Wales is that decisions about the medical treatment of children, like those about the medical treatment of adults, are governed by what is in their best interests. We are also satisfied that this does not discriminate against the parents of children such as Alfie in the enjoyment of their right to respect for their family life because their situation is not comparable with that of the parents of children who are taken away from them by the state to be brought up elsewhere.

[Pannonian]

I think the UK courts are aware that there is (or think there ought to be) a high threshold to overriding parental autonomy. But the legislators have clearly been of the position that parental autonomy is not unlimited. It isn't even in the US (though we do a terrible job of replacing it, since the kids are typically poor and/or dark).

Again from the Supreme Court Evans appeal rejection; this is addressing the appellants attempt to compare* the courts' decisions wrt Alfie to "care proceedings" (analogous to child abuse/neglect proceedings in the US) that find "significant harm" to children as a consequence of parental action/inaction, outlining probably the consensus orientation of government:

*That is, the argument that the court doesn't have jurisdiction to make "best interests" judgements because they should have to prove "significant harm", i.e. active abuse/neglect.

And there are scandals over cases where it was deemed the state did not do enough to protect children from abusive families. Every time a child who has been visited by social workers dies whilst in their parents' care, heads are called for over why the children hadn't been taken from their families for their own protection. It's often the more conservative papers that lead the call for heads.

[Fisherking]

Only if you are a post modernist or perhaps think every law is just simply because it happened to be codified.

For over a thousand years, in the English system of law a crime required a victim and a demonstrable harm. Be that theft of property, fraud, or serious bodily harm.

Those were infringements upon the rights or property of others. So, no, generally it is not arbitrary. At least not until statutory laws in the last century began to criminalise other behaviour without a definable victim. These you would be correct in terming arbitrary.

When should state hold president over next of kin or caretaker, when there is provable criminal intent to do harm to the ward.

Certainly not when they disagree with medical opinion of not sustaining life.

So, where does the Britton’s right to liberty fall? Apparently they have the liberty to agree with government decisions and shut up. It is an empty promise on paper.

According to the last paragraph in this article, yes:

The state tends to do that if the parents don't have the best interests of the child in mind. The child cannot act as a free person and make decisions, although I guess you could free it of all the tubes the doctors inserted and see what it does by its own free will...

They did that. The child continued to live so they withheld sustenance until he died. But that wasn't torture, it was a medical procedure to them.

[Greyblades]

This is the moment where English liberty has died?

Not the two decades of ever mounting restrictions of action by moralizing psychopaths? The criminalizing of speech? The enforced discrimination of race, the death of habeus corpus?

Is it truly only the refusal to continue supporting the lingering spasms of a literal living corpse that can finaly make my people see the ascendance of this ever creeping tyrrany?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

This is the moment where English liberty has died?

Not the two decades of ever mounting restrictions of action by moralizing psychopaths? The criminalizing of speech? The enforced discrimination of race, the death of habeus corpus?

Is it truly only the refusal to continue supporting the lingering spasms of a literal living corpse that can finaly make my people see the ascendance of this ever creeping tyrrany?

Not sure I agree with your premise, but NICE use of language -- an almost poetic build to this.

[Montmorency]

Only if you are a post modernist or perhaps think every law is just simply because it happened to be codified.

For over a thousand years, in the English system of law a crime required a victim and a demonstrable harm. Be that theft of property, fraud, or serious bodily harm.

Those were infringements upon the rights or property of others. So, no, generally it is not arbitrary. At least not until statutory laws in the last century began to criminalise other behaviour without a definable victim. These you would be correct in terming arbitrary.

Traditional legal systems (specifically here Germanic ones) are about controlling retaliation. They have little resemblance to our "state", other than in the reductive sense of bodily and property relations being the first available judicial object (states broadly being the entities that emerged to manage the distribution of persons and resources, in the first place).

This is not a complete legal/judicial/executive framework for the modern world, and what it seems to come down to is a strong libertarian distaste for our multitudinous modern societies.

When should state hold president over next of kin or caretaker, when there is provable criminal intent to do harm to the ward.

Certainly not when they disagree with medical opinion of not sustaining life.

So now the discussion in the case material of "care proceedings" and "inherent jurisdiction" becomes more relevant. (Refer to my links and quotations in the big post.)

The judges in the two appeals (including Supreme Court) presented their belief that a state intervention to avert or halt "significant harm" to children (cf. "criminal intent to do harm to the ward") is actually derivative from and subordinate to the inherent jurisdiction of the courts and the state in determining a subject's best interests.

If I understand this correctly, then it is not actually possible to give the state to evaluate significant harm while drastically restricting its jurisdiction to determine best interests.

That being correct, of course, would leave you with the arbitrary circumscription.

[Fisherking]

I’m sorry you don’t understand principals. This is a decision denying rights under colour of law.

Either you have rights or you don’t. You may lose your rights due to a criminal act upon your part but until then, their protection is the paramount purpose of the law. It is not to protect government but the individual. Codifying rights is not a restraint on the individual but upon the government.

Governments don’t grant rights, they can merely confer privileges which they may also withhold.

The decision also flies in the face of logic.

Which outcome is most sure to result in "significant harm”? Allowing further medical treatment and life support or forcing the patient to starve to death.

It is a difficult task to convince any reasoning human being that it is the latter. To not recognise it instantaneously shows a severe limitation in cognitive ability.

You may cloak it in legalisms and hide it under colour of law but it is still murder and a violation of rights.

Further, it is a prohibition upon the state not to be arbitrary, not upon the individual. Their straw man was "significant harm” yet they were the ones directly responsible for the death. It was not for just, and good cause, as it could only end in death. It was blatantly to force their will upon the principals in the case. The statute was used as a vehicle to that end.

Your entire argument is that the courts upheld the law but what of it?

Is the law just or its application in this instance? Did it serve justice to see this child die of starvation?

It leads one to ask what government is for. Is it to protect the rights of individuals who make up society or is it only to exercise power over its geographic boundaries for its own sake?

[rory_20_uk]

He died when active treatment was withdrawn. They did not kill him - Intensive Care is not a "natural" state of affairs. There is no "right" to intensive treatment that has no hope of working. It is completely logical not to focus resources on the hopeless. Else why do we stop CPR after an amount of time? Why not just keep on going until the body starts to rot? To do otherwise by your logic is nonsensical.

Starving patients to death is a time honoured method in the USA as well - since this is not undertaking any action to cause death, merely taking no action to prevent it. I have not seen you espouse for others when life support is withdrawn because the family want it to be. This is a barbaric way to die that certainly in the UK if one were to treat an animal in that way one would face criminal prosecution as the animal should be humanely (oh the irony) put down... but we do not do that to humans.

Of all the needless deaths in the NHS - of which every year there are thousands - I can not fathom why you focus on one needful death.

[Fisherking]

He died when active treatment was withdrawn. They did not kill him - Intensive Care is not a "natural" state of affairs. There is no "right" to intensive treatment that has no hope of working. It is completely logical not to focus resources on the hopeless. Else why do we stop CPR after an amount of time? Why not just keep on going until the body starts to rot? To do otherwise by your logic is nonsensical.

Starving patients to death is a time honoured method in the USA as well - since this is not undertaking any action to cause death, merely taking no action to prevent it. I have not seen you espouse for others when life support is withdrawn because the family want it to be. This is a barbaric way to die that certainly in the UK if one were to treat an animal in that way one would face criminal prosecution as the animal should be humanely (oh the irony) put down... but we do not do that to humans.

Of all the needless deaths in the NHS - of which every year there are thousands - I can not fathom why you focus on one needful death.

The answer to your questions is simple. Because in this case people were denied their liberty. They had their choice overridden by government.

It is something government has taken an oath to uphold by codifying it in law. Yet this serves only the wishes of the state.

Either you have rights or you do not. And this says not. But you seem happy to play “make believe” and can find justification, no mater how slim in the decision.

It is after all just one unless animal culled from the tax farm.

[rory_20_uk]

Every day millions of people have their "liberties" overridden by government.

The choice enforced the rights of the child, not the parents who do not have carte blanche rights. They never have in the UK and I don't think they have in the USA either.

The justification both follows the views of the experts and it is in the best interests of the child. Only those who fantasise of "inalienable rights" which were codified by slave owners.

Why on earth are you fetishising one brain dead child and ignoring the "rights" of the vast number of others who have theirs overridden every day?

[Pannonian]

The answer to your questions is simple. Because in this case people were denied their liberty. They had their choice overridden by government.

It is something government has taken an oath to uphold by codifying it in law. Yet this serves only the wishes of the state.

Either you have rights or you do not. And this says not. But you seem happy to play “make believe” and can find justification, no mater how slim in the decision.

It is after all just one unless animal culled from the tax farm.

This is a language of debate that is alien to the British political world. British politics is founded on case studies rather than abstract principles. Political debate based on abstract principles is the realm of the intellectual elite, mostly that of the Left.

[Fisherking]

Every day millions of people have their "liberties" overridden by government.

The choice enforced the rights of the child, not the parents who do not have carte blanche rights. They never have in the UK and I don't think they have in the USA either.

The justification both follows the views of the experts and it is in the best interests of the child. Only those who fantasise of "inalienable rights" which were codified by slave owners.

Why on earth are you fetishising one brain dead child and ignoring the "rights" of the vast number of others who have theirs overridden every day?

In your first statement you assert that “Might Makes Right”.

In the second you invent a right to die, when I only see a right to life.

Then you go on to assert Experts while there were experts on both sides of the issue and the court choose to go with those who upheld the government view rather than the other. Both were only opinions of equal weight.

Next as to unalienable rights, those came for both English Common Law and the Enlightenment. They did not originate in unruly colonies but upon the principals which make up your own constitution. As they saw it, it was their right as free Englishmen the sought to uphold. As for some holding slaves, that was also a British Institution brought over into a new republic. It was by all accounts a Crown Court of the 1600s which found that Black Africans could be held a chattel in perpetuity.

Lastly, that would be because it is most often the least that need those protections the most. That government abuses the rights of others is no excuse and even inexcusable.

I am not content to be only a farm animal being obedient to the masters chance has placed above me. That so many are so careless never ceases to amaze me.

This is a language of debate that is alien to the British political world. British politics is founded on case studies rather than abstract principles. Political debate based on abstract principles is the realm of the intellectual elite, mostly that of the Left.

Thank you for the insight. It explains a good deal.

Just an aside, would you think some of it is due to the absence of principals among most politicians?

[Husar]

The answer to your questions is simple. Because in this case people were denied their liberty. They had their choice overridden by government.

I can't shake the feeling that you're only arguing about the rights of the parents and completely ignore the rights of the child.
A brainless child cannot make choices, so who should make choices for it? Usually the parents at first, but what if their choices are objectively bad for the child? Does their right to make choices override the well-being of the child? Should parents be allowed to give their children into slavery to pay off their debts for example? Would it be tyranny of the government to override that choice?

And your assumption that staying alive is always the preferable choice is flawed given that plenty of people with terminal illnesses do want to choose to die rather than continue suffering. In their cases there is also a debate about whether or not the government should be allowed to forbid them the suicide option. What do you think about that? Should they be allowed to choose death or be prevented from doing "significant harm" to themselves and slowly wither away on life support?

[Montmorency]

...

Wait, I think you're not apprehending what it was I brought to your attention. I don't recall having yet made any argument about what's all good or worthwhile about a given arrangement. This is another layer of the topic.

0. Just to let it be noted, the child did not die from starvation, he was removed from mechanical ventilation. Taking a patient off life support is not murder, or else we get to argue whether opposing government intervention is murder of another sort.

1. I wanted to make it clear that the law established the course of action taken (therefore not internally arbitrary, regardless of your opinion of its overall validity or legitimacy), and that this law codified aspects of what is considered "inherent jurisdiction" of courts that creates an authority to evaluate a subject's best interests. Which jurisdiction is also considered to exist beyond the particular law as a central component of common law. You're, uh, not going to like this one...:

Inherent jurisdiction is a doctrine of the English common law that a superior court has the jurisdiction to hear any matter that comes before it, unless a statute or rule limits that authority or grants exclusive jurisdiction to some other court or tribunal. The term is also used when a governmental institution derives its jurisdiction from a fundamental governing instrument such as a constitution. In the English case of Bremer Vulkan Schiffbau und Maschinenfabrik v. South India Shipping Corporation Ltd, Lord Diplock described the court's inherent jurisdiction as a general power to control its own procedure so as to prevent its being used to achieve injustice.

Inherent jurisdiction appears to apply to an almost limitless set of circumstances. There are four general categories for use of the court's inherent jurisdiction:

1. to ensure convenience and fairness in legal proceedings;
2. to prevent steps being taken that would render judicial proceedings inefficacious;
3. to prevent abuses of process;
4. to act in aid of superior courts and in aid or control of inferior courts and tribunals.

As such, the exercise of inherent jurisdiction is a broad doctrine allowing a court to control its own processes and to control the procedures before it. The power stems not from any particular statute or legislation, but rather from inherent powers invested in a court to control the proceedings brought before it.

Don't look so green though, as I said the Children Act of 1989 does constrain its invocation somewhat.


2. This case, the withdrawal of intensive care to Alfie Evans, WAS NOT decided on the basis of "significant harm" thresholds. The parents were the ones who argued that it ought to be decided according to that standard, but the courts ruled that "best interests" is the paramount principle and that the "significant harm" principle is derivative thereof and subordinate thereto (i.e. you can't have one without the other).


(2.5. Theoretically, if society/government in the UK or Europe came to evaluate best interests differently, the courts could be used to prevent termination of life support.)

3.

It is not to protect government but the individual. Codifying rights is not a restraint on the individual but upon the government.

Governments don’t grant rights, they can merely confer privileges which they may also withhold.

That's correct, and what the government interprets the object of the law and the late proceedings to be. Can the state decide what the best interests of a citizen are in any circumstance? If you say no, then from an extension of the judges reasoning one might rejoin that this excises the grounding for the state to decide when one citizen is violating another's rights (except perhaps in narrowly and explicitly codified manner involving a finite, concrete action/result). That this would then seriously constrain the ability of the state to categorize and respond to what you refer to as "criminal intent to do harm to the ward", what you said would be cause for derogating parental rights.



Or to summarize, either you take issue with the specific decisions and arguments of the NHS/courts in this episode, or you take issue with the powers and authorities relied upon regardless of application.

If you take issue on the specific (result), know that your interpretation is available to be applied, it's just most people (and so the case law and professional consensus) disagree with you at the moment.

If you take issue on the general (process), then the logical consequences of your position may in fact redound to undermine it.

He died when active treatment was withdrawn. They did not kill him - Intensive Care is not a "natural" state of affairs. There is no "right" to intensive treatment that has no hope of working. It is completely logical not to focus resources on the hopeless. Else why do we stop CPR after an amount of time? Why not just keep on going until the body starts to rot? To do otherwise by your logic is nonsensical.

I don't see the cogency in this analogy. The important distinction is that CPR is an acute emergency procedure, not an ongoing one. When administering CPR, there is immediate uncertainty as to the patient's state, whereas with life support by default you know the patient is still alive (or else you discover otherwise and move them to the morgue).

I can't shake the feeling that you're only arguing about the rights of the parents and completely ignore the rights of the child.
A brainless child cannot make choices, so who should make choices for it? Usually the parents at first, but what if their choices are objectively bad for the child? Does their right to make choices override the well-being of the child? Should parents be allowed to give their children into slavery to pay off their debts for example? Would it be tyranny of the government to override that choice?

And your assumption that staying alive is always the preferable choice is flawed given that plenty of people with terminal illnesses do want to choose to die rather than continue suffering. In their cases there is also a debate about whether or not the government should be allowed to forbid them the suicide option. What do you think about that? Should they be allowed to choose death or be prevented from doing "significant harm" to themselves and slowly wither away on life support?

The position of the Catholic Church I suppose is that the state of being alive is valuable in itself, equally for every single 'human being'.

But the Vatican does also advocate the acceptance of mortality in the face of futility, so at some point treatment can be refused by either care provider or patient.

[Montmorency]

-double-

[Husar]

I don't see the cogency in this analogy. The important distinction is that CPR is an acute emergency procedure, not an ongoing one. When administering CPR, there is immediate uncertainty as to the patient's state, whereas with life support by default you know the patient is still alive (or else you discover otherwise and move them to the morgue).

Well, alive/dead is not the only state one can be uncertain about, there can also be recovering/degrading/unchanging and possibly others.

[rory_20_uk]

I don't see the cogency in this analogy. The important distinction is that CPR is an acute emergency procedure, not an ongoing one. When administering CPR, there is immediate uncertainty as to the patient's state, whereas with life support by default you know the patient is still alive (or else you discover otherwise and move them to the morgue).

When a patient is on life support this means that the body is alive. Whether there is a self aware life-form in there varies tremendously. The body can be kept going for in some cases years.

With CPR there is often initial uncertainty, and is an emergency. When it has been going for 30 minutes the uncertainty is much, much less - and unless there is a really good reason to the contrary chances of recovery are dropping towards zero. Hence why the active treatment stops when it is viewed as futile. And also why there are such things as "Do Not Attempt Resuscitation" orders since often the patient's state can be predicted and treatment that is not required is not attempted.

[Montmorency]

When a patient is on life support this means that the body is alive. Whether there is a self aware life-form in there varies tremendously. The body can be kept going for in some cases years.

With CPR there is often initial uncertainty, and is an emergency. When it has been going for 30 minutes the uncertainty is much, much less - and unless there is a really good reason to the contrary chances of recovery are dropping towards zero. Hence why the active treatment stops when it is viewed as futile. And also why there are such things as "Do Not Attempt Resuscitation" orders since often the patient's state can be predicted and treatment that is not required is not attempted.

Yes, you could contrast it in terms of stability and uncertainty. What I'm saying then is against conflating a disruption of stable equilibrium with tapering of acute intervention under uncertainty.

[rory_20_uk]

Yes, you could contrast it in terms of stability and uncertainty. What I'm saying then is against conflating a disruption of stable equilibrium with tapering of acute intervention under uncertainty.

One is not stable equilibrium - often it varies as they undergo tests and of course they can both improve and deteriorate. The time frames might well be different but the principles are identical.

[Montmorency]

One is not stable equilibrium - often it varies as they undergo tests and of course they can both improve and deteriorate. The time frames might well be different but the principles are identical.

To clarify, I'm not asserting there is a stable equilibrium as a rule, but where there is one - such as where maintaining the procedure without further changes in condition entails indefinite perdurance - the nature of termination is clearly different.

It's the difference between 'if I stop pushing this button you will die' and 'if I push this button it might reduce mortality/morbidity'.

[rory_20_uk]

To clarify, I'm not asserting there is a stable equilibrium as a rule, but where there is one - such as where maintaining the procedure without further changes in condition entails indefinite perdurance - the nature of termination is clearly different.

It's the difference between 'if I stop pushing this button you will die' and 'if I push this button it might reduce mortality/morbidity'.

Although that is somewhat of a circular argument - in those that will be stable will be stable, then it comes down to whether "stable" is the same as "being alive". E.g. live donors for organ transplant they will keep them going and then cut out the required organs that "kills" the donor. Except that the donor is already viewed as dead and merely the husk remains. Waiting for the body to die would result in organs that at best are much less viable and worst case are useless for transplants.

In CPR stopping does not definitely mean that a person will die - and there is no "right" to have treatment that will save one's life - even if not having the treatment will definitely lead to death. There never has been - look at the "death boards" who decided who would receive dialysis and who would not.

[Fisherking]

I can't shake the feeling that you're only arguing about the rights of the parents and completely ignore the rights of the child.
A brainless child cannot make choices, so who should make choices for it? Usually the parents at first, but what if their choices are objectively bad for the child? Does their right to make choices override the well-being of the child? Should parents be allowed to give their children into slavery to pay off their debts for example? Would it be tyranny of the government to override that choice?

And your assumption that staying alive is always the preferable choice is flawed given that plenty of people with terminal illnesses do want to choose to die rather than continue suffering. In their cases there is also a debate about whether or not the government should be allowed to forbid them the suicide option. What do you think about that? Should they be allowed to choose death or be prevented from doing "significant harm" to themselves and slowly wither away on life support?

In this case it is simply the wishes of the parents to seek further aid. The child’s condition was not able to be diagnosed. There is nothing unreasonable about their intentions.

What I fail to see the logic of is the institutional intervention to prevent it. Nor do I find the court decision to back a government agency at all convincing.

There needs to be overarching proof that the parents intention would result in grievous harm. The testimony of one set of experts vs. another set of experts is just a weighing of opinion. It is not proof.

It shows a flagrant disregard of individual liberty and abandonment of legal principles. This my not be of any importance at all, as I am informed, to individual Britons but on the world stage it smacks of supreme hypocrisy. They always decry the human rights abuses of other countries while giving less than lip service to their own people.

[Montmorency]

Although that is somewhat of a circular argument - in those that will be stable will be stable, then it comes down to whether "stable" is the same as "being alive". E.g. live donors for organ transplant they will keep them going and then cut out the required organs that "kills" the donor. Except that the donor is already viewed as dead and merely the husk remains. Waiting for the body to die would result in organs that at best are much less viable and worst case are useless for transplants.

In the sense of 'not terminal or dying bodily'.

In CPR stopping does not definitely mean that a person will die - and there is no "right" to have treatment that will save one's life - even if not having the treatment will definitely lead to death. There never has been - look at the "death boards" who decided who would receive dialysis and who would not.

Original context was

It is completely logical not to focus resources on the hopeless. Else why do we stop CPR after an amount of time? Why not just keep on going until the body starts to rot? To do otherwise by your logic is nonsensical.

Maybe you're thinking in terms of utilitarianism as the principle in question, but that's not my dispute. The action itself taken/withheld is not comparable between the two scenarios in terms of Fisherking's moral concern.

A different direction for discussion, but if there is some kind of right to medical treatment shouldn't there be a derivative right to (non-compulsory) life-saving treatment? Even the US has something like it.

[Strike For The South]

Alfie Evans is just one of these cases that American conservatives love to trot out to scare Americans about the government.

In Reality, if Alfie was American, he would have reached his insurance maximum long ago, his parents would have mortgaged the house, started a go fund me, and then divorced as they failed to forestall the inevitability of their sons death.

[rory_20_uk]

Maybe you're thinking in terms of utilitarianism as the principle in question, but that's not my dispute. The action itself taken/withheld is not comparable between the two scenarios in terms of Fisherking's moral concern.

A different direction for discussion, but if there is some kind of right to medical treatment shouldn't there be a derivative right to (non-compulsory) life-saving treatment? Even the US has something like it.

On the "moral concern" point I just draw a blank. This seems one of the oddest cases to make a big deal over since no treatment would work. Then we are in the inside-the-event-horizon argument around whether the moral rights of the parent to have whatever they want done to their child over the morals of what is viewed as best for a child.

On the life saving treatment... that is always a difficult one since over what time frame are we talking about? The best ways of saving one's life is regular exercise, no drinking / drugs and a balanced diet. I know it and I don't do as well as I could. Next life saving is not taking opiates. Then probably other things such as seatbelts and restricting guns.

So by the time we get to what people think of as "life saving" treatment that mainly has been preceded by decades of causing the problem.

The USA will not provide immunisation for children for free, do not treat kidney / cardiovascular diseases for free and hand out opiates like smarties - even these are all known to massively reduce one's life but then will spring (briefly) into action to treat the massive MI that has occurred or the drug overdose and then dump the patient out afterwards with no follow up. Perhaps this is another example of a "moral" approach to healthcare which has dreadful outcomes - but that doesn't matter since the "morals" are OK. I just can't get my head around this concept that it is more important that the individuals have their "liberties" which might end their lives but also their "rights" to emergency care as well.

[Fisherking]

Monty, I have never argued the legality of what transpired. Many things have, and continue to happen that are perfectly legal yet not ethical, moral, or just.

What I said was that it was an unnecessary intervention by government.

That it was also an infringement of the basic human rights of the parents.

The decision of the court to hear the case doesn’t even show good judgement, leaving aside the finding.

Additionally the child lingered for several days after life support was remove and sustenance denied. Did you want to split hairs on the cause of death?

We also know that this is not the first case of this nature and the others have also been blocked form seeking medical aid outside the country.

Why? Are all UK parents presumed to have evil intent toward their children, or is it an arrogant or paranoid bureaucracy seeking what it believes to be in its interest?

The notion that continuing life is torture is waring a bit thin.

My contention is that the cases should simply have been allowed to seek treatment outside the UK.

Denying them that only brings unwanted attention to the NHS and the courts. If this child or any of the others had gone to Italy, France, Germany, etc. It would not have cause a blip in the news. And this above all else puzzles me. It seems the height of governmental stupidity.