5 ms·

Having the gov decide who gets what care is incompatible with a free society. Alfie Evans is a striking example.

lazyasciiart 8y ago
A "free society" doesn't require that parents be given free reign to torture their children. You may wish to argue whether that's what was happening, but that's the reasoning the state gave for their actions. If you'd like to argue that a free society does require this, go ahead, but I don't think most people agree.
- jakeogh 8y ago
  The "state says" excuse? That's free to you? There was absolutely nothing wrong with his parents. The state in that case forbid them from accepting help and decided to (frankly) murder the person.
  - onion2k 8y ago
    Alfie's doctors made the decision that taking him from hospital for an experimental treatment in a different country had a strong chance of killing him, and that he was better off dying peacefully and not in pain in the UK. Alfie's parents fought to try and save his life at any cost even if it meant he went through tortuous pain first. Frankly both sides of the argument are understandable. No one wants a child to suffer but no parent wants to give up on their baby. It's a tragic case. It's also an exception. Using it as the basis of how you decide 99.999% of other medical cases is idiotic, and using Alfie's memory as a tool to promote a particular system of healthcare payment is obscene and shameful. Just remember this - for every case like Alfie's where there genuinely are two sides to consider there are millions more where the doctors are simply right. Setting a precedent that parents wishes automatically overrule the doctors would cause so many children to suffer. This is why we let doctors and courts make decisions - to save children from stupid parents.
    - jakeogh 8y ago
      "taking him from hospital for an experimental treatment in a different country had a strong chance of killing him" ...so they killed him. The excuse about "dying peacefully and not in pain" is junk. Clearly he can be sedated, and that isn't an argument for letting the state kill people without trial anyway. Parents already overrule doctors on end of life care, try telling an American parent that you are going to lethally inject their child against their wishes (setting aside the obvious that murder is still illegal here). You excuse it as an exception. How many exceptions would it take for you to have a problem with it?
      - onion2k 8y ago
        Clearly he can be sedated, and that isn't an argument for letting the state kill people without trial anyway. Just to clarify, the state didn't kill him. He died of GABA-transaminase deficiency, which was only diagnosed after he died. The treatment that his parents wanted to try was a shot in the dark. No one knew what was wrong with Alfie. You are arguing that taking a child from hospital, causing him more pain and suffering, putting him through a frightening and scary procedure, that has no basis in medicinal science (as there's no way to know if it'll cure an undiagnosed problem) is better than letting him die peacefully, safely and surrounded with love. You can take a "life at any cost" point of view but the UK Court didn't. It took the view that a pain free and caring death was better than an agonising and highly unlikely long shot.
        jakeogh 8y ago
        Just to clarify, the state didn't kill him. They removed his life support, against the wishes of his parents and then prevented them from accepting help. He survived ~5 days without it. While it's a sad story I agree, it's not the point. Giving the state the power to decide who lives and dies without a trial and conviction for a crime is something many of us had hoped was settled long ago.
        jakeogh 8y ago
        EDIT: There was a trial, I regret simplifying this down to murder.
pjc50 8y ago
The Alfie Evans case could well have had the same outcome with fully private care, since it was a case about the rights of the child rather than about funding for treatment. (Besides, we can probably find a lot more cases of dead children in the US where they were simply denied or unable to afford coverage ...)
- jakeogh 8y ago
  I agree. Thanks. It was a mistake to use his case as an example of my concern.
DanBC 8y ago
In the US the doctors would have done exactly the same thing: they would have proposed a treatment plan; the parents would have disagreed; the doctors would have gone to court and probably would have won. But in the US there would have been the additional funding step: the parents would have had to get insurance companies to pay for futile treatment, and no compnay would do so, or the parents would have had to crowd-fund this treatment. Here, for anyone interested, are some of the legal documents (in date order) around the Alfie Evans case. They clearly show that parents have a right to a family life and to care for their child as they see fit, but that this right isn't total because the child is also human and has his own human rights. The paramountcy principle mean that the rights of the child come before the rights of the parents. Please note that because of the involvement of the Christian Legal Centre in some of the court cases there's been a lot of misinformation spread about the case. I know that there's nothing I can say to change your mind: you have an ideological viewpoint, and that's okay. But I think you should at least acknowledge that your opinion is not based on fact. https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2018/308.html&query=(alfi)+AND+(evans) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC... https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2018/550.html&query=(alfi)+AND+(evans) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA... https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/eu/cases/ECHR/2018/297.html&query=(alfi)+AND+(evans) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/eu/cases/ECHR... https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2018/818.html&query=(alfi)+AND+(evans) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC... https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2018/805.html&query=(alfi)+AND+(evans) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA... https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/eu/cases/ECHR/2018/357.html&query=(alfi)+AND+(evans) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/eu/cases/ECHR... https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2018/953.html&query=(alfi)+AND+(evans) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC... https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2018/984.html&query=(alfi)+AND+(evans) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA... https://www.supremecourt.uk/docs/in-the-matter-of-alfie-evans-court-order.pdf https://www.supremecourt.uk/docs/in-the-matter-of-alfie-evan...
- jakeogh 8y ago

A "free society" doesn't require that parents be given free reign to torture their children. You may wish to argue whether that's what was happening, but that's the reasoning the state gave for their actions. If you'd like to argue that a free society does require this, go ahead, but I don't think most people agree.

jakeogh 8y ago
The "state says" excuse? That's free to you? There was absolutely nothing wrong with his parents. The state in that case forbid them from accepting help and decided to (frankly) murder the person.
- onion2k 8y ago
  Alfie's doctors made the decision that taking him from hospital for an experimental treatment in a different country had a strong chance of killing him, and that he was better off dying peacefully and not in pain in the UK. Alfie's parents fought to try and save his life at any cost even if it meant he went through tortuous pain first. Frankly both sides of the argument are understandable. No one wants a child to suffer but no parent wants to give up on their baby. It's a tragic case. It's also an exception. Using it as the basis of how you decide 99.999% of other medical cases is idiotic, and using Alfie's memory as a tool to promote a particular system of healthcare payment is obscene and shameful. Just remember this - for every case like Alfie's where there genuinely are two sides to consider there are millions more where the doctors are simply right. Setting a precedent that parents wishes automatically overrule the doctors would cause so many children to suffer. This is why we let doctors and courts make decisions - to save children from stupid parents.
  - jakeogh 8y ago
    "taking him from hospital for an experimental treatment in a different country had a strong chance of killing him" ...so they killed him. The excuse about "dying peacefully and not in pain" is junk. Clearly he can be sedated, and that isn't an argument for letting the state kill people without trial anyway. Parents already overrule doctors on end of life care, try telling an American parent that you are going to lethally inject their child against their wishes (setting aside the obvious that murder is still illegal here). You excuse it as an exception. How many exceptions would it take for you to have a problem with it?
    - onion2k 8y ago
      Clearly he can be sedated, and that isn't an argument for letting the state kill people without trial anyway. Just to clarify, the state didn't kill him. He died of GABA-transaminase deficiency, which was only diagnosed after he died. The treatment that his parents wanted to try was a shot in the dark. No one knew what was wrong with Alfie. You are arguing that taking a child from hospital, causing him more pain and suffering, putting him through a frightening and scary procedure, that has no basis in medicinal science (as there's no way to know if it'll cure an undiagnosed problem) is better than letting him die peacefully, safely and surrounded with love. You can take a "life at any cost" point of view but the UK Court didn't. It took the view that a pain free and caring death was better than an agonising and highly unlikely long shot.
      - jakeogh 8y ago
        Just to clarify, the state didn't kill him. They removed his life support, against the wishes of his parents and then prevented them from accepting help. He survived ~5 days without it. While it's a sad story I agree, it's not the point. Giving the state the power to decide who lives and dies without a trial and conviction for a crime is something many of us had hoped was settled long ago.
        jakeogh 8y ago
        EDIT: There was a trial, I regret simplifying this down to murder.

pjc50 8y ago

The Alfie Evans case could well have had the same outcome with fully private care, since it was a case about the rights of the child rather than about funding for treatment. (Besides, we can probably find a lot more cases of dead children in the US where they were simply denied or unable to afford coverage ...)

jakeogh 8y ago
I agree. Thanks. It was a mistake to use his case as an example of my concern.

DanBC 8y ago

In the US the doctors would have done exactly the same thing: they would have proposed a treatment plan; the parents would have disagreed; the doctors would have gone to court and probably would have won. But in the US there would have been the additional funding step: the parents would have had to get insurance companies to pay for futile treatment, and no compnay would do so, or the parents would have had to crowd-fund this treatment. Here, for anyone interested, are some of the legal documents (in date order) around the Alfie Evans case. They clearly show that parents have a right to a family life and to care for their child as they see fit, but that this right isn't total because the child is also human and has his own human rights. The paramountcy principle mean that the rights of the child come before the rights of the parents. Please note that because of the involvement of the Christian Legal Centre in some of the court cases there's been a lot of misinformation spread about the case. I know that there's nothing I can say to change your mind: you have an ideological viewpoint, and that's okay. But I think you should at least acknowledge that your opinion is not based on fact. https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2018/308.html&query=(alfi)+AND+(evans) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC... https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2018/550.html&query=(alfi)+AND+(evans) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA... https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/eu/cases/ECHR/2018/297.html&query=(alfi)+AND+(evans) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/eu/cases/ECHR... https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2018/818.html&query=(alfi)+AND+(evans) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC... https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2018/805.html&query=(alfi)+AND+(evans) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA... https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/eu/cases/ECHR/2018/357.html&query=(alfi)+AND+(evans) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/eu/cases/ECHR... https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2018/953.html&query=(alfi)+AND+(evans) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC... https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2018/984.html&query=(alfi)+AND+(evans) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA... https://www.supremecourt.uk/docs/in-the-matter-of-alfie-evans-court-order.pdf https://www.supremecourt.uk/docs/in-the-matter-of-alfie-evan...

jakeogh 8y ago