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What about Alfie Evens? UK said he must die. Parents were prevented from taking him to another country for care.

drunken-serval 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
nicktelford 8y ago
This isn't at all accurate. There was no treatment for his condition beyond palliative care. He was on life support for the rest of his life, no matter what anyone did. His doctors, whose duty is to the patient, determined that it was more harmful to artificially keep him "alive" (he was in a semi-vegetative state due to serious brain damage) than to disconnect his life support and allow him to die. The offer of "care" in another country (the Vatican) was simply palliative care: they intended to simply keep him alive on life support indefinitely. There was no treatment for his condition. His doctors, quite rightly, concluded that transport to another country would do him no good and would instead cause more harm. The court case was between his doctors and his parents. The UK government had absolutely nothing to do with it.
- humanrebar 8y ago
  > The court case was between his doctors and his parents. The UK government had absolutely nothing to do with it. Is there a difference in terminology here? The courts are part of the government in my mind. And they have the ability to overrule unjust law.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - nicktelford 8y ago
    An independent judiciary is a foundation of all true democracies. The government may make the laws, but the judiciary are fully independent when making judgements about a case. IANAL but I believe in this case, the point of law it came down to was largely about deciding what was best for the patient, not the parents.
  - makomk 8y ago
    From what I can tell, Americans seem to define "government" to include the courts as one of its branches, whereas Brits define it to only mean the legislative branch and maybe part of the executive in US terms. Which makes it interesting when British people accuse Americans of lying for claiming the government was responsible for this, especially since I'm sure some of those people know Americans mean something different by that word.
    - oldcynic 8y ago
      Aren't judges appointed by the president in the US? Reports of Supreme Court candidates every time the US elects a president appears to indicate a lack of judicial independence. I'm not hugely well informed on US law so could be misunderstanding this process. Edit: Wikipedia tells me Article 3 of the Constitution makes the federal courts part of federal government
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > Aren't judges appointed by the president in the US? Appointed by, but not accountable to once appointed, and the appointments are permanent. The President can't direct judges or fire them because he doesn't like how they do their job (Congress can “fire” them by impeachment, but that requires a supermajority in the Senate after charges by a majority of the House, which means it doesn't happen on a whim of the political majority.)
  - oldcynic 8y ago
    UK courts have had judicial independence since the Act of Settlement. Governments don't appoint judges - now via an independent panel since the Blair govt abolished the Lord Chancellor, but even then govts didn't have influence or appointing powers. The courts quite often upset UK governments (of whichever party) when they strike down bad laws via judicial review, or by finding some aspect of government policy illegal.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    In parliamentary systems, “the government” is often most frequently understood in a sense somewhst similar to the way “the administration” is used in the US, referring to basically the cabinet and their political subordinates who direct policy.
    - tialaramex 8y ago
      This is probably a bit confusing for Americans because in the UK big cabinet posts in that executive will be filled by people from the legislature. So all the senior jobs go to elected representatives - but the citizens who elected them don't get to pick who gets which job. Imagine if Mitch McConnell runs the executive, he gets to pick Senators for important stuff like the Secretary of State, and lesser things like the top of the FCC go to Republicans in the House. They're still in Congress, they just are now also running an executive. Just as now all the real work is done by career civil servants, the politicians are there to set political direction. The Palace where the UK's elected legislators meet is divided down the middle so that members of the political parties that aren't in Government are quite literally "the opposition" - they're facing the members from the governing party. Because power might shift suddenly a serious opposition political party has to have "shadows" of every major executive role. A Shadow Environment Minister for example doesn't have a huge Department actually governing the environment like the "real" Environment Minister but they need to know what's going on in that department and be able to explain how their party would do it differently, because tomorrow they could be in power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

This isn't at all accurate. There was no treatment for his condition beyond palliative care. He was on life support for the rest of his life, no matter what anyone did. His doctors, whose duty is to the patient, determined that it was more harmful to artificially keep him "alive" (he was in a semi-vegetative state due to serious brain damage) than to disconnect his life support and allow him to die. The offer of "care" in another country (the Vatican) was simply palliative care: they intended to simply keep him alive on life support indefinitely. There was no treatment for his condition. His doctors, quite rightly, concluded that transport to another country would do him no good and would instead cause more harm. The court case was between his doctors and his parents. The UK government had absolutely nothing to do with it.

humanrebar 8y ago
> The court case was between his doctors and his parents. The UK government had absolutely nothing to do with it. Is there a difference in terminology here? The courts are part of the government in my mind. And they have the ability to overrule unjust law.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- nicktelford 8y ago
  An independent judiciary is a foundation of all true democracies. The government may make the laws, but the judiciary are fully independent when making judgements about a case. IANAL but I believe in this case, the point of law it came down to was largely about deciding what was best for the patient, not the parents.
- makomk 8y ago
  From what I can tell, Americans seem to define "government" to include the courts as one of its branches, whereas Brits define it to only mean the legislative branch and maybe part of the executive in US terms. Which makes it interesting when British people accuse Americans of lying for claiming the government was responsible for this, especially since I'm sure some of those people know Americans mean something different by that word.
  - oldcynic 8y ago
    Aren't judges appointed by the president in the US? Reports of Supreme Court candidates every time the US elects a president appears to indicate a lack of judicial independence. I'm not hugely well informed on US law so could be misunderstanding this process. Edit: Wikipedia tells me Article 3 of the Constitution makes the federal courts part of federal government
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > Aren't judges appointed by the president in the US? Appointed by, but not accountable to once appointed, and the appointments are permanent. The President can't direct judges or fire them because he doesn't like how they do their job (Congress can “fire” them by impeachment, but that requires a supermajority in the Senate after charges by a majority of the House, which means it doesn't happen on a whim of the political majority.)
- oldcynic 8y ago
  UK courts have had judicial independence since the Act of Settlement. Governments don't appoint judges - now via an independent panel since the Blair govt abolished the Lord Chancellor, but even then govts didn't have influence or appointing powers. The courts quite often upset UK governments (of whichever party) when they strike down bad laws via judicial review, or by finding some aspect of government policy illegal.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  In parliamentary systems, “the government” is often most frequently understood in a sense somewhst similar to the way “the administration” is used in the US, referring to basically the cabinet and their political subordinates who direct policy.
  - tialaramex 8y ago
    This is probably a bit confusing for Americans because in the UK big cabinet posts in that executive will be filled by people from the legislature. So all the senior jobs go to elected representatives - but the citizens who elected them don't get to pick who gets which job. Imagine if Mitch McConnell runs the executive, he gets to pick Senators for important stuff like the Secretary of State, and lesser things like the top of the FCC go to Republicans in the House. They're still in Congress, they just are now also running an executive. Just as now all the real work is done by career civil servants, the politicians are there to set political direction. The Palace where the UK's elected legislators meet is divided down the middle so that members of the political parties that aren't in Government are quite literally "the opposition" - they're facing the members from the governing party. Because power might shift suddenly a serious opposition political party has to have "shadows" of every major executive role. A Shadow Environment Minister for example doesn't have a huge Department actually governing the environment like the "real" Environment Minister but they need to know what's going on in that department and be able to explain how their party would do it differently, because tomorrow they could be in power.