Patterico's Pontifications

4/28/2018

Alfie Evans: Even A Little Life Is Worth Fighting For

Filed under: General — Dana @ 11:00 am



[guest post by Dana]

Untitled
(photo from CNN)

Little Alfie Evans has passed away. The sweet little two-year old had been the focus of a fierce battle between his parents, who wanted the right to make the life and death decisions concerning him, the British National Health Service (NHS) and the judiciary, who seemingly worked tirelessly to deny the parents these rights:

Pope Francis had been publicly praying and advocating for the 23-month-old boy, and the Italian government offered the child citizenship and created a plan to take the boy to a Vatican hospital. But Alfie’s doctors, who took him off life support against the parents’ wishes, said he couldn’t be healed and shouldn’t make the trip. A judge earlier this week sided with his doctors, who said Alfie suffered from a rare and incurable degenerative neurological condition. The court also ruled that the parents could not seek treatment for him elsewhere because further treatment would be against the child’s best interests.

When the decision was made that the little boy would be taken off the ventilator, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital released this statement:

“This evening the High Court again ruled that it is in Alfie’s best interests to continue with the end of life care plan developed by the clinical team who have cared for him throughout.

“Our top priority therefore remains in ensuring Alfie receives the care he deserves to ensure his comfort, dignity and privacy are maintained throughout. This includes working closely with Kate and Tom as they spend this precious time together with him.

“We would be grateful if respect and consideration is shown to all our staff, patients and families at the hospital at this difficult time.”

The assumption being that Alfie’s own parents, Tom Evans and Kate James, did not have their little boy’s best interest at heart, while the courts and the hospital did. Again, Alfie’s parents had already been told “no” to taking their son to Italy for care, told he would be taken off life support, against their wishes, and were told that he might be able to die at home if they had an attitude adjustment:

But a doctor treating Alfie, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said that for Alfie to be allowed home would require a “sea change” in attitude from the child’s family, and they feared that in the “worst case” they would try to take the boy abroad.

I tried to write about Alfie Evans a number of times as the storm swirled around him but continually found myself tearfully fraught with anger at the outrageous unfairness of it all. I read a number of stories about the battles over Alfie. About how conservatives in the U.S. were using his case as an example of the inevitable end of socialized medicine, how Alfie was just a little political football, and how U.S. conservatives have rallied around Alfie Evans. And while I prayed for the little guy and his parents, niggling in the back of my mind was the question of why one little boy’s life didn’t appear to be worth fighting for by everyone? Why wasn’t Alfie Evans viewed with having an inherent value that made him worth the fight? Why was their silence by too many when two loving parents were forced into an ugly and exhausting battle just to be allowed to say goodbye to their little one in the privacy of their own home? It was as if this parental love cost too much for too many in power, and for too many who believed the courts knew best. That two loving and conscientious parents had their rights taken away by the courts should outrage everyone. And in wondering why everyone didn’t feel the urge to fight for Alfie and his parents, I am certainly not alone:

What the British government is doing to a baby and his family is almost unbelievable. The state has determined that Alfie Evans, afflicted as he is by a rare neurodegenerative disorder, has so poor a quality of life that no efforts should be made to keep him alive.

He was taken off ventilation, but continued, surprising the doctors, to breathe. He has also been deprived of water and food. His parents want to take him to Italy, where a hospital is willing to treat him. The British government says no, and has police stationed to keep the boy from being rescued. It is, after all, in his best interest to die. (Yes, the British courts have made that determination, interpreting an act of Parliament, and in Britain “government” often refers to the executive branch. The point here is that we are discussing a policy of the British state.)

There are end-of-life cases that raise genuinely complicated issues. The same course of medical treatment might be obligatory in one set of circumstances, permissible in another, and cruel in a third. There are gray areas and judgment calls.

This is not one of those cases. There is no allegation that providing the baby with nutrition and hydration, or treatment generally, will cause him suffering — or that extending his life will prolong his suffering, since there is no indication that he has been suffering.

The family is not asking the British government to pay for expensive treatments. They just want the freedom to take their boy to people who will try to keep him alive rather than cause his death.

The considerations that move the government are that the baby’s doctors consider it unlikely that he will ever attain a high level of cognitive functioning or be able to survive on his own, and likely that his condition will eventually kill him. The courts have decided that Alfie Evans therefore derives no benefit from continuing to live.

It really is this simple: The British state has decided that it is the baby’s best interest to die, and it is trying to ensure that he dies expeditiously. It is overriding parental rights in the process.

And while the article focuses on responding to the silent left in the U.S., I believe the concluding statement below can be asked of many, no matter their political stripe. I don’t think it matters that this took place overseas where the laws are different than here. That this could happen here as an accepted practice is a concern that bridges an ocean. We would be fools to not take heed.

The family and its supporters assert, with justified outrage, that it is barbaric to sentence anyone to death by starvation for the crime of being dependent on others, and that parents have a right to make medical decisions for their children. The courts are treating the parents as though they were in the grip of irrational, if understandable, emotions. They are merely loving their baby. It is the British state that appears to be reacting in an irrational and nearly incomprehensible, way.

The Guardian reports that the case has become a “rallying cry for social conservatives” in the United States. So it has. My question is: Why aren’t liberals horrified by the British government’s behavior, too? Shouldn’t everyone be?

Like little Charlie Gard before him, may Alfie Evans be welcomed home by the angels in a joyously giddy reception of loving kindness. And while he is now at peace, may his parents, who are surely walking through a hellish vale of anguish, find comfort in knowing their little love is now home-free.

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

57 Responses to “Alfie Evans: Even A Little Life Is Worth Fighting For”

  1. Good morning.

    Dana (023079)

  2. Deepest sympathies to his family. There few events as wrenching as the death of a child, and I hope that peace and comfort will find them.
    Will there be an autopsy? The diagnosis is so unclear that I think it would be useful.

    Slugger (4d8154)

  3. Can we please, oh please, not have any jackass comments on this horrible event?

    My students are confused by this case. I carefully tell them the quotation by Larry Niven: security x freedom = a constant. The more of one, the less of the other. And how dangerous it is when a large governmental structure makes decisions FOR you, ABOUT you.

    There are no mobs with torches yet.

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  4. the UK’s rancid and totalitarian anymore

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  5. Very good post, Dana. I cannot add anything that you have not already said better than I could.

    nk (dbc370)

  6. May God welcome poor Alfie into His home and bless his soul eternally.

    I’ll wait till later to respond to how the left treats individuals as statistics and not people.

    NJRob (b00189)

  7. 3.Can we please, oh please, not have any jackass comments on this horrible event?

    Exactly what do you consider a jackass comment?

    Rev.Hoagie (1b0402)

  8. A judge earlier this week sided with his doctors, who said Alfie suffered from a rare and incurable degenerative neurological condition.

    will there be an autopsy to determine a definitive diagnosis

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  9. This crosses a line.

    Sure, when the State is paying all the bills, they have an interest in these decisions, but this wasn’t that any more. Once the parents had secured outside funding, the State’s economic interest is nil.

    What remains? The State claims the right to not only engage in euthanasia, but to determine the time for it “in the patient’s interest.” It’s not just withholding care, but preventing others from providing it that makes it euthanasia. If you object to that word, there are others.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  10. He has also been deprived of water and food.

    My mother died after about 6 months of hospice as her body shut down bit by bit. At no time during those 6 months did she have any quality of life that I could see. I had her DPoA. And yet, if I did what those doctors did, I would be charged with murder.

    What did the CoE have to say about it?

    Kevin M (752a26)

  11. My question is: Why aren’t liberals horrified by the British government’s behavior, too?

    I suspect that if you believe in abortion for Down’s Syndrome you have no problem with this.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  12. The assumption being that Alfie’s own parents, Tom Evans and Kate James, did not have their little boy’s best interest at heart, while the courts and the hospital did.

    That doesn’t follow at all. It is not that they “do not have their little boy’s best interest at heart,” rather it is that their judgment of what will serve that best interest is medically unsound.

    If a child has a cold, and the child’s parents believe sincerely, with all their hearts, that administering a massive dose of strychnine will cure it, and a doctor tells them that, no, strychnine is poison and it will lead to horrible suffering before certain death, are the courts obliged to let he parents go ahead and administer the poison? Of course not. And the court does not have to believe the parents don’t want what is best for their child to reach that decision. The point is that what the parents want is not in line with sound medical practice. In effect, they are trying to play doctor.

    I *am* very uncomfortable with making the kid a prisoner in the hospital. I don’t think (as in the case of Charlie Gard) the parents should be allowed to insist on treatments that no informed doctor believes has any chance of working. But I think they should be free to take the kid (at their own expense) to any doctor or hospital that will treat him in a medically responsible way.

    Dave (445e97)

  13. My question is: Why aren’t liberals horrified by the British government’s behavior, too?

    Ha.hahaha. Since when have “liberals”, as you wrongfully call modern leftists, been concerned about the government killing anyone? They spent the entire 20th century murdering millions and you expect them to care about one English kid? That’s hilarious.

    Rev.Hoagie (1b0402)

  14. 1) The British stance boils down to “let the experts decide”, the experts here being the MDs. From what I’ve seen on Twitter the idea that the doctors can advise but the parents are the only ones who can decide is no longer comprehensible to large segments of UK society.

    2) I suspect tribalism infects reaction here: Left sees Right advocating A, so Left automatically assumes A is bad.

    Kishnevi (98ea1b)

  15. Great post. The reason the British government did this was spelled out in Kira Davis’s recent post at RedState. The British government could not take the chance of being proved wrong. So they sacrificed a young child’s life, to ensure that nobody would come along and save it and prove them wrong.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  16. That doesn’t follow at all. It is not that they “do not have their little boy’s best interest at heart,” rather it is that their judgment of what will serve that best interest is medically unsound.

    If a child has a cold, and the child’s parents believe sincerely, with all their hearts, that administering a massive dose of strychnine will cure it, and a doctor tells them that, no, strychnine is poison and it will lead to horrible suffering before certain death, are the courts obliged to let he parents go ahead and administer the poison? Of course not. And the court does not have to believe the parents don’t want what is best for their child to reach that decision. The point is that what the parents want is not in line with sound medical practice. In effect, they are trying to play doctor.

    That example has nothing to do with the reality of the situation, in which Italian doctors simply disagreed with the British doctors and thought something could be done for the boy. The Italians were not trying to poison the child. They were trying to save his life. Bringing up absurd analogies like this is not helpful given the reality of what happened.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  17. How exactly is this situation different from what went on in Germany in the 1930s, when it was governmental policy to euthanize babies and children who did not meet the German government’s criteria of who qualified as Aryians and who did not?

    hmonrdick (5f4fb8)

  18. God bless this child, and maybe his passing has spurred those all over the world to care for those who are ill. Alfies passing has generated a serious emotional conversation about critical care, rights of family.

    EPWJ (f4224b)

  19. I suspect that if you believe in abortion for Down’s Syndrome you have no problem with this.

    Kevin M (752a26) — 4/28/2018 @ 12:01 pm

    I agree. However, what makes this even more despicable and troubling is that Alfie was two years old and not in the womb.

    Dana (023079)

  20. people pregnant with down babies and also people with sick little guys like Mr. Alfie should both be allowed a maximal amount of freedom and choice in the decision-makings about their kiddos

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  21. The British government could not take the chance of being proved wrong. So they sacrificed a young child’s life, to ensure that nobody would come along and save it and prove them wrong.

    And the evidence to support this charge of conspiracy to commit murder against a dozen or so medical doctors (other than the shaky assumption that anyone who disagrees with us must have bad motives) is…?

    That example has nothing to do with the reality of the situation

    I was responding to a specific argument of Dana’s, which I quoted. She said that the court ruling entailed:

    The assumption being that Alfie’s own parents, Tom Evans and Kate James, did not have their little boy’s best interest at heart, while the courts and the hospital did.

    My example showed why no such assumption is necessary. To paraphrase:

    Dana: The courts and hospital said that the parents did not want what is best for their child.

    Me: The courts and hospital said that what the parents want is not best for their child.

    Dave (445e97)

  22. How exactly is this situation different from what went on in Germany in the 1930s, when it was governmental policy to euthanize babies and children who did not meet the German government’s criteria of who qualified as Aryians and who did not?

    You’re right, withdrawing life support from an incurably ill patient in a vegetative state to avoid prolonging his suffering indefinitely is EXACTLY like genocide.

    The nazi euthanasia program started in the 1940s, btw.

    Dave (445e97)

  23. Dave defending the leftist, statist position once again. I’m so shocked.

    NJRob (3333f0)

  24. Part of me wishes that the parents, preferably with cameras rolling, had told the guards, “I’m taking my son out of here. If you want to stop me, you’ll have to shoot me.”

    Mitch (57a593)

  25. the uk will put you in jail for dog tricks

    people don’t have civil rights there

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  26. You’re right, withdrawing life support from an incurably ill patient in a vegetative state to avoid prolonging his suffering indefinitely is EXACTLY like genocide.

    The nazi euthanasia program started in the 1940s, btw.
    Dave (445e97) — 4/28/2018 @ 1:29 pm

    Whong again, comrade. The Nazi euthanasia program, named the T4 Program was instituted in 1939 and although officially ended in 1941 actually ran till the end of the war. The program was begun to “kill the incurably ill, physically or mentally disabled, emotionally distraught and elderly”. So no Dave, this is exactly like Nazi euthanasia in that little Alfie was “incurably ill”. You just may have more in common with the Nazi’s than the commies, Dave. Hard to tell.

    Rev.Hoagie (1b0402)

  27. Another case that just sickens me, like Charlie Gard’s.

    I worked for the government, and I know that admitting a single wrong is almost impossible for them, because all they have is a belief in their own power. Once they admit they are wrong, on even a small case, it all begins to crumble. And we musn’t have that!

    So of course the baby cannot go home. Of course he cannot leave the hospital. The state is all/1

    The silence of decent people and leaders frightens me.

    Patricia (3363ec)

  28. The document authorizing the program was signed in late 1939. The centers, according to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Resource Center, were opened in 1940, “comrade”.

    And if you don’t see the difference between bringing people in no immediate danger of dying to a death center created for the express purpose of accomplishing genocide via mass murder, and removing the life support that has kept a terminally ill baby with no hope of recovery in a vegetative state for months, then you should examine what you’ve become.

    Dave (445e97)

  29. I worked for the government, and I know that admitting a single wrong is almost impossible for them, because all they have is a belief in their own power. Once they admit they are wrong, on even a small case, it all begins to crumble. And we musn’t have that!

    So government functionaries routinely murder innocent people to cover up any mistake “even on a small case”? Do you realize how ridiculous that claim is?

    So of course the baby cannot go home. Of course he cannot leave the hospital. The state is all/1

    The chance of that baby (or Charlie Gard) recovering and anybody being proved wrong was zero.

    But do you have any evidence, other than your fevered imagination, that dozens of doctors in UK conspired to murder this child? If you are right, all it would take is a single honest doctor, nurse or bureaucrat – to blow the whistle. But nobody did.

    But you are convinced (remind me again of the evidence) that nearly all the doctors and nurses in the UK would commit murder before admitting any mistake?

    Also, if it was so important, and all of the doctors and nurses involved wanted him dead, why draw attention by letting it become a major media cause celebre? Why not just quietly do the little tyke in months ago, and call it “natural causes” or “complications”?

    These crazy conspiracy theories just make no sense.

    Dave (445e97)

  30. No Dave, that is a complete overstatement of what I said.

    Patricia (3363ec)

  31. There’d have been no cost to letting him, or Charlie, go to another country for some kind of effort to help. No cost. Cost-shaving is not a reason here.
    So what was the reason for keeping him a prisoner? As others have said, the only one left is the desire not to be proven wrong.
    A government would sacrifice a kid so as to not be proven wrong? See Waco.

    A report had it that a guy showed up in front of the hospital wearing black and a pectoral cross. Asked if he were a priest, he answered no. Then, said the people, where are the priests?
    You’ll recall these sick, sadistic control freaks refused to allow a clergyman into Charlie’s room. Eventually they relented and a US clergyman came to pray with the family. Apparently, being crossways with the NHS scares even Brit clergy. You have to import free men.
    This is about power. Because it was a kid, a cute one, it got the ink. But jailing for wrongthink goes on, while so does Rotherham. And, Brit subjects, there’s not a damned thing you can do about it but bend over and ask for another.

    Richard Aubrey (10ef71)

  32. Little Alfie is dead. But remember children, government run single payer healthcare is good for you. Ask a democrat, or socialist, or communist, or…oh what’s the difference?

    Rev.Hoagie (1b0402)

  33. Patterico. Suppose somebody was in Alfie’s position and the govenment decided he should die and forbade other avenues. Kid dies. Other avenues remain unused. Kid’s father goes to the office of those who decided and shoots several of them. Dead.
    Do you think it would be worth trying to seat a jury? Can you strike all parents and grandparents to start out?

    Richard Aubrey (10ef71)

  34. I just wonder if Alfie had been the child of Prince William and Kate Middleton would he have been denied treatment? Think about that because you know the NHS would have spared no expense and no trip would have been too far or “illegal” to save the little prince’s life. Guaranteed!

    That’s what National Health Care and single payer actually mean: abundant care for the rich and powerful and screw the deplorables.

    Rev.Hoagie (1b0402)

  35. Hoagie. Yer right. The UK has an option for private health insurance. Benny Hill had a couple of bits on the difference.

    Richard Aubrey (10ef71)

  36. Dave, should Alfie’s parents have been barred, by force of arms, from taking their son out of the hospital? (Not sure that it matters “where to” or “by what means,” but in this instance it would have been “to Italy, which made Alfie a citizen” and “by ambulance provided/ funded by Italy, to a medical plane with numerous medical professionals standing by.”)

    The question matters greatly, because they were thus barred.

    Mitch (57a593)

  37. Hoagie, yes, the UK press often print glowing accounts of a famous person’s stay in hospital. Can’t let the famous ones get anything but blue ribbon care! But it’s a zero sum game, isn’t it? Sponge-bathing Ian McKellan means not doing something for a non-famous person in the next wing.

    Mitch (57a593)

  38. So, about that jury?

    Richard Aubrey (10ef71)

  39. The Sun HAS set on the British Empire.

    askeptic (8d10f9)

  40. It appears I was right about the jury issue. Nobody could get a conviction so there wouldn’t be a prosecution. Maybe our kids are safe here.

    Richard Aubrey (10ef71)

  41. A COUPLE have become Britain’s oldest new parents — only to have their baby taken from them by social services.

    The 63-year-old mum and her partner, 65, are “devastated” after bosses stepped in and took the child from them.

    why does tacky-assed gold-diggy-digger leggy meggy wanna be princess to a fascist nazi state

    all I can think is she’s kind of a loser huh

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  42. “…There few events as wrenching as the death of a child…”

    Anybody can say anything on the internet. So feel free not to believe me. Back in the nineties the only son I’ll ever have developed a fatal birth defect. My wife, a Japanese national, had kept her Japanese doctor in the crazed belief that America wasn’t providing it”s veterans and their progeny with the best health care.

    Now, where could they have gotten that idea?

    I checked my wife into St. Marriannas in Yokohama.

    https://www.yelp.com/biz/%E8%81%96%E3%83%9E%E3%83%AA%E3%82%A2%E3%83%B3%E3%83%8A%E5%8C%BB%E7%A7%91%E5%A4%A7%E5%AD%A6%E7%97%85%E9%99%A2-%E5%B7%9D%E5%B4%8E%E5%B8%82

    We lost our son. But always stick to your guns. At first Big Navy tried to fight me. Their contemptuous ‘tude was, “Where did you get your medical degree?” All it did was make me want to fight harder. And to the Navy’s credit, they gave up the effort when they recognized the fighter they played a role in creating was now going to fight.

    There was nothing anybody could do. My son died. The Navy paid the bill.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  43. Very very very sorry for your loss Steve

    EPWJ (f4224b)

  44. Money wasn’t the issue. I still do not see how it became an issue.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  45. Very very very sorry for your loss Steve
    EPWJ (f4224b) — 4/29/2018 @ 5:37 pm

    I wish I could tel you I’m over it. What I want you to know is it’s not an excuse. Nor is it a license to kill. Would my son want me to murder? I think I ‘ will refraam from the killing for a little while.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  46. EPWJ, no matter how bitter my disputes with you may be in the future, I don’t hate you. I can no longer even entertain the idea of hatred.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  47. I dont think I did so in the past.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  48. My brother was killed overseas. When I found out the circumstances, I wrote the PTB a letter with a lot of bitterness included. The response was kinder than the letter deserved.
    George Marshall got letters from parents of men killed on D-Day condemning him for…something. Lack of training. Grief will send you there.
    My question is whether the grief and the extra sadistic powertripping of the NHS directed at Alfie’s parents and Charlie’s parents might send somebody over the edge. And then, what? Could you seat a jury?

    Richard Aubrey (10ef71)

  49. The assumption being that Alfie’s own parents, Tom Evans and Kate James, did not have their little boy’s best interest at heart,

    That’s probably not a fair summary, buut a straw man.

    The assumption is/was that they were too biased to judge dispassionately what was in Alfie’s best interest, which according to them was to die.

    But if so, why not just give him enough morphine to kill him? Why precisely the plan that the doctors chose? Oh – there are some other (moral) considerations? Or maybe just legal?

    I guess regular religious leaders aren’t good judges of morality.

    I think the hospital just didn’t want to risk the possibility that its medical judgement would be proven wrong. That could cause a lot of trouble.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  50. The nHS was denying service to members of the “Windrush generation”

    (People from British colobnies could immigrate – were in fact encouraged to do so after World War II. Then this was stopped. Nobody needed identity papers or doicuments for much of anything till 2012. Then they began cracking down.

    The government had no records – or had destroyed them – of people brought to the UK as children frm 1948 to 1972 (the cutoff for immigration from these places was about 1962)

    They were denied healthcare, jobs and housing and sometimes even deported.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/world/europe/uk-windrush-apology-theresa-may.html

    The controversy began after the publication of recent reports in the British press about longtime legal residents of West Indian and Caribbean ancestry who had lost their jobs, been denied medical care, been evicted or even detained and threatened with deportation — all because they could not prove that they had lived in the country since before 1973.

    Now Prime Minister Theresa May is sorry and the current Home secretary has been dismissed.

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

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  51. 31. Richard Aubrey (10ef71) — 4/29/2018 @ 4:22 am

    31.There’d have been no cost to letting him, or Charlie, go to another country for some kind of effort to help. No cost. Cost-shaving is not a reason here.

    Yes, it is.

    If the treatment was considered better, or had better results, the NHS would have ahard case for ot doing it for other people.

    So what was the reason for keeping him a prisoner? As others have said, the only one left is the desire not to be proven wrong.

    But that’s
    wouild result in a cost to the NHS.

    A government would sacrifice a kid so as to not be proven wrong? See Waco.

    No, Waco was about President Bill Clinton, saving Friend of Bill Little Rock BATF head and planner of the raid J. William Buford from prosecution for murdering three of his own men, using corrupt FBI officials.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  52. Dave (445e97) — 4/28/2018 @ 1:29 pm

    It’s always been said to have started September 1, 1939, with the invasion of Poland.

    Hans Asperger was part of it. He selected children for execution.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hans-asperger-autism-eugenics-nazi-germany-lorna-wing-judith-gould-a8312536.html

    A new study claims that Asperger actively recommended that children should be sent to their deaths at Spiegelgrund, where the Nazis enacted a policy they referred to as euthanasia. This policy saw hundreds of children killed.

    Maybe his motive was to select fewer. His whole thesis ft into Nazi ideology – imperfectly. For instance he claimed that people with autism were sadistic. As if the Nazis were against sadism.

    Asperger never wanted any attention to what he did under the Nazis. A 1944 article was found decades later. How could anyone have failed to investigate?

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  53. Okay, Sammy. But what about seating a jury if an American version of Alfie Evans happens and the father kills a couple of the deciders?
    Could you get a jury that wasn’t automatically null?

    Richard Aubrey (10ef71)

  54. Dana, what is your reaction to Kevin Drum’s analysis of this?
    https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/05/alfie-evans-is-the-latest-martyr-of-the-pro-life-movement/

    If the child was brain dead, then he was really dead. The only purpose of keeping him “alive” (i.e., his heart beating) would be for his parents and maybe religious people who want to not feel guilty about it.

    Tillman (a95660)

  55. it’s not the fascist UK government’s place to decide who lives and dies they need to focus on getting Leggy Meggy a brazilian for the wedding

    she’s unkempt

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  56. hf, doctors gave the expert advice. I don’t think that most people are qualified to check for brain activity.

    Tillman (a95660)

  57. Mr. Tillman if the fascist NHS gestapo doctors believed their diagnosis then why did it matter where alfie went caput

    they forced that beautiful little tyke to die like an animal in a squalid government hospital

    this is who they are

    happyfeet (28a91b)


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