Alfie - the right to die?

[WillyGilligan]

If you haven't been following the case, the article does a decent summary. 23 month old with degenerative disease is in a coma and British doctors have stated that he had catastrophic brain damage such that further treatment was not in his best interests. Depending on that diagnosis, I can see arguing for euthanasia in this case. I still remember Terry Schaivo and that to me was a clear example of the difference between keeping a person alive and keeping a corpse warm. So I would not blame the parents for wanting to take him off of life support.

The problem is, they didn't want to. And they had an Italian hospital on standby willing to attempt some kind of alternate treatment. But England would not let them leave. And that's where I have a problem. Because I get the doctor's argument. I actually think that the most likely outcome of a successful procedure in Italy would be very similar to Schaivo, but with a dash of Peter Pan thrown in - watching a little boy live on without ever growing up, or talk or think. But if his brain is that catastrophically damaged, can he truly be suffering? Does it actually hurt anything to let the parents try?

[Kyle]

I agree. If there’s not some kind of catastrophic cost that is being imposed on unwilling parties, then I don’t see the obstacle here. I agree that what they’re doing is pointless, and the child is probably clinically dead- but if they and the new facility are willing to absorb the cost- where’s the harm? We let people do all sorts of expensive treatments that are just snake oil. But they’re willing.

[Phoebe]

I don't think that's what happened in this case. I don't think they did have anyone standing by who was offering to provide a different kind of treatment. So the question is really if there is no further treatment that is going to solve the underlying medical condition, what sorts of palliative care are appropriate? And in this case, are the parents trying to do things that would interfere with offering palliative care in an ethical manner?

[WillyGilligan]

Yeah, I've been trying to nail that part of the story down, since I only became aware of it in the last week. Some commentary states experimental treatment, some just says treatment. It doesn't help that a lot of right-leaning commentators keep referring to previous incident with Charlie Gard and Ashya King. Ashya received proton therapy after his parents took him from the hospital to another country, and the therapy helped him recover from his cancer. Charlie's parents were stopped from doing that and he died. But it looks like the different incidents are getting mixed together.

So, Italy was willing to continue treating him, at no cost to the British taxpayer. The Pope attempted to intervene on his behalf. England is saying that continued treatment in this hopeless situation would have been against Alfie's human rights. And I find myself understanding both positions.

[bralbovsky]

The parents are responsible for the kid, he's theirs. If he breaks a window with a baseball, if he runs away, if he ends up in the emergency room. Unless what they are doing is specifically endangering him or otherwise provably causing harm, the state generally defers that it's the parents' call, sometimes demands they take action.

England is therefore wrong (again). Can they prove he would be better off dead? Of course not.

Here we are in 2018, and there's a girl who fell ill and lost consistent responsiveness, perhaps due to doctor error or neglect (likely not a coincidence that she was poor and brown). Many of her caregivers and her family members claim that occasionally she does respond. It's tricky to tell. She was cut off on the western hospital where she lived because they said she was brain dead, Cali, I think (I will try to find her name. It has been a while since I read about her) She relocated to Boston, where they at least admitted that she might not be entirely brain dead. As far as I know, years later, she lives, and still occasionally responds, to the point that observers say they can distinguish what might be called moods.

The point behind all this is that truly, the medical community chose to establish a thing it calls 'brain death' when they can't say exactly what that means. Oh, and they really can't tell, except in a rather primitive holding the mirror up to her nose kind of way. It persists as a convention, wait for it, because to question it might make the precarious supply of transplant donors even more scarce. Not at all because we understand the brain. We understand more of the deepest ocean than we do about our brains.

We love certainty, even when it's a lie. In the past year or so, a whole brain vascular system that wasn't acknowledged has been demonstrated to exist, and, nerve cells do heal, but they're slow. So, England is further wrong because of its pretense to certainty (again). I'm not sure I believe Alfie lives, in the fullest sense, but I am sure it's not my jurisdiction, not some insurance adjustor's.

[Bonefish]

I believe I read somewhere that the Italian hospital rescinded it's offer of treatment after recieving his medical history?

[mimekiller]

hes dead jim