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Welcome to Fairfax Underground, a project site designed to improve communication among residents of Fairfax County, VA. Feel free to post anything Northern Virginia residents would find interesting.
Single Payer And Charlie Gard: When Euthanasia Becomes A Duty
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Death Panels are Real
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Date: June 29, 2017 05:39PM
Single Payer And Charlie Gard: When Euthanasia Becomes A Duty
ED MORRISSEYPosted at 2:01 pm on June 29, 2017
When is death a duty? Two days ago, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of doctors over the parents in a battle over a baby with a rare and fatal genetic disease. The ECHR followed rulings from British courts, declaring that doctors in the UK’s National Health Service could stop life support rather than allow the parents to bring Charlie Gard to the US for experimental treatment:
Born in August, Charlie Gard has a rare genetic disorder known as mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. Caused by a genetic mutation, it leads to weakened muscles and organ dysfunction, among other symptoms, with a poor prognosis for most patients.
Charlie is on life support and has been in the intensive care unit at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London since October. His doctors wish to take him off life support, but his parents disagree.
Charlie’s parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, wanted the hospital to release Charlie into their custody so they can take him to the United States for an experimental treatment.
“The domestic courts concluded that it would be lawful for the hospital to withdraw life sustaining treatment because it was likely that Charlie would suffer significant harm if his present suffering was prolonged without any realistic prospect of improvement, and the experimental therapy would be of no effective benefit,” a press release from the court announcing the decision said.
The couple had raised nearly £1.4 million for that effort, which would have ended NHS involvement in the case, but the courts decided that they — and not the parents — were in position to decide that death rather than potential treatment was what was best for the child. Now the parents cannot even take the baby home to allow him to die there rather than in hospital, even though they pledged to cover all the costs:
Connie Yates and Chris Gard have been told by Great Ormond Street their son’s life support will be switched off tomorrow but he cannot leave the ward.
The couple’s ‘final wish’ for Charlie has been blocked and his mother Connie said today in a video for MailOnline: ‘We promised our little boy every single day that we would take him home’.
Mr Gard added: ‘We want to give him a bath at home, put him in a cot which he has never slept in but we are now being denied that. We know what day our son is going to die but don’t get a say in how that will happen’.
Note that there was no disagreement between the parents over the course of care they wanted for Charlie. The two of them have lived at the hospital with their baby, and have been equally united in their desire to try anything to save his life. This is not a dispute between relatives over who should have control over care (as was the issue in the Terri Schiavo case) but whether the state or the parents should have the final say. In a single-payer system such as NHS, the courts have clearly ruled that the state has more standing on whether to allow someone to die than the person or his/her nearest relations. And now, the state — through its socialized-medicine providers — refuse to even allow the death to take place under the circumstances desired by the family.
While this case does not directly relate to euthanasia laws, there is nonetheless a cultural and moral link to European embrace of utilitarian policies on life. In this case, neither the patient nor the family wanted an end to a life, but the state ruled that “compassion” demanded the withdrawal of life support even absent the need to conserve resources for care. Critics have long warned that the embrace of euthanasia would eventually transform it from a choice to a duty, and that certainly seems to be what happened in the tragic case of Charlie Gard.
ED MORRISSEYPosted at 2:01 pm on June 29, 2017
When is death a duty? Two days ago, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of doctors over the parents in a battle over a baby with a rare and fatal genetic disease. The ECHR followed rulings from British courts, declaring that doctors in the UK’s National Health Service could stop life support rather than allow the parents to bring Charlie Gard to the US for experimental treatment:
Born in August, Charlie Gard has a rare genetic disorder known as mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. Caused by a genetic mutation, it leads to weakened muscles and organ dysfunction, among other symptoms, with a poor prognosis for most patients.
Charlie is on life support and has been in the intensive care unit at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London since October. His doctors wish to take him off life support, but his parents disagree.
Charlie’s parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, wanted the hospital to release Charlie into their custody so they can take him to the United States for an experimental treatment.
“The domestic courts concluded that it would be lawful for the hospital to withdraw life sustaining treatment because it was likely that Charlie would suffer significant harm if his present suffering was prolonged without any realistic prospect of improvement, and the experimental therapy would be of no effective benefit,” a press release from the court announcing the decision said.
The couple had raised nearly £1.4 million for that effort, which would have ended NHS involvement in the case, but the courts decided that they — and not the parents — were in position to decide that death rather than potential treatment was what was best for the child. Now the parents cannot even take the baby home to allow him to die there rather than in hospital, even though they pledged to cover all the costs:
Connie Yates and Chris Gard have been told by Great Ormond Street their son’s life support will be switched off tomorrow but he cannot leave the ward.
The couple’s ‘final wish’ for Charlie has been blocked and his mother Connie said today in a video for MailOnline: ‘We promised our little boy every single day that we would take him home’.
Mr Gard added: ‘We want to give him a bath at home, put him in a cot which he has never slept in but we are now being denied that. We know what day our son is going to die but don’t get a say in how that will happen’.
Note that there was no disagreement between the parents over the course of care they wanted for Charlie. The two of them have lived at the hospital with their baby, and have been equally united in their desire to try anything to save his life. This is not a dispute between relatives over who should have control over care (as was the issue in the Terri Schiavo case) but whether the state or the parents should have the final say. In a single-payer system such as NHS, the courts have clearly ruled that the state has more standing on whether to allow someone to die than the person or his/her nearest relations. And now, the state — through its socialized-medicine providers — refuse to even allow the death to take place under the circumstances desired by the family.
While this case does not directly relate to euthanasia laws, there is nonetheless a cultural and moral link to European embrace of utilitarian policies on life. In this case, neither the patient nor the family wanted an end to a life, but the state ruled that “compassion” demanded the withdrawal of life support even absent the need to conserve resources for care. Critics have long warned that the embrace of euthanasia would eventually transform it from a choice to a duty, and that certainly seems to be what happened in the tragic case of Charlie Gard.