It's a very good thing we have laymen like you to make these decisions on behalf of medical doctors.
Guess I missed the point where you became a PHD yourself.
Also, it's a moot point, since I am more or less repeating what the doctors said about Charlie.
Hell, afaik even the doctors offering the treatment said it would not extend his life.
Abysmal analogy. Textbook strawman.
Hey, if you can use hyperboles, so can I.
Suffer? In what regard? Is the crux of the argument not "it's a potato so just let it die"? If it's a potato, how does it suffer? Mentally well children suffer going through chemotherapy, but that is allowed, even if the cancer's survival rate is barely non-zero.
As far as I am concerned, it is not the crux of the argument. There's a thing called "sanctity of life" and whether or not you believe in that nonsense, you have to accept the fact that a lot of people do. And his rights don't end just cause he turned into a potato. I mean, just look at ADF...
Charlie suffered by being forced to live on in such a terrible condition. I seriously hope that he was not aware of any of his situation.
And on the other hand: Chemoterapy is a well-tested therapy that directly benefits the patient. In certain cases, it might be too late or fail, but it has a distinct and direct potential benefit for the child - in stark contrast to the therapy that Charlie would have gotten.
You are comparing apples and oranges, mate.
At what point do you realize how awful this sounds? There is a patient, a doctor has a treatment, the parents have money, and the government is threatening to imprison people over that transaction.
Where does the Government get to stop exerting this force? What if the Government decides to mandate abortions for this disease? Your logic applies to that equally. If you get scan of your fetus, they see that there is a 99% chance of it being born exactly like Charlie, then what?
If you're going to claim the NHS can't dictate to an expecting mother what to do with her body, then how can they threaten to imprison her for seeking treatment for that child after it's born? The NHS can obviously control people's actions by threat of imprisonment. The sentences "if you take that baby to get treatment, we will imprison you" and "if you give birth to that baby, we will imprison you" are not too distinct are they?
Again, you are comparing apples and oranges.
You equate the government preventing an apparently useless therapy with the government going nuts and going on a fetus-killing spree. I mean, sure, the authority of the goverment has to end somewhere.
I understand your point, it is a good point you are making. I just think that the UK has the best interests of such patients at heart in trying to enable said patients to live without undue suffering and some modicum of dignity by preventing futile or even harmful attempts at treatment that they haven't even consented to.
Besides, this is a slippery slope in both ways.
When you allow parents the ultimate and last say in what they wanna do with their sick kids, you end up with children dying for autistic reasons, such as people being stupid and falling for scams.
If you put all authority on the goverment, you end up in an awful position where the goverment might prevent potentially helpful therapies for autistic reasons.
Neither of these situations is good.
At the moment, the situation in the UK is leaning more towards the latter, however it's not like the UK is preventing possibly good treatments for no reason.
We've just been witnessing an extreme case where the parents cling to something, hoping it will somehow magically fix the situation while the doctors involved tell them repeatedly that there is no hope.
The child's rights!? Like the right to seek treatment?? The only right being enforced here is the right to die! NHS went full fucking DIGNITAS on a potato and you're jumping up and down cheering that no one had any fucking say in the matter besides the government.
You can stress it as much as you'd like mate, you're fucking wrong.
Actually, it was the child's right to not suffer through a treatment that has no chances of improving its lot and thus reinforcing its right to retain his bodily integrity.
Also I am not "jumping up and down cheering". I am merely stating that given Charlie's situation, I am sympathetic to the decision and lament the cruel fate that he and his parents had to suffer. I understand the reasoning behind this decision is all I am saying.
Your "religious nutjobs" are not doctors with fucking degrees in medicine bro.
I am talking about Charlie's parents who have no PHDs either.
Because that's the only fucking thing that matters. You are completely oblivious to the broader implications in the fucking medical organ of government being able to dictate to its people that they can't even leave the country to pay for medicine.
The UK is not preventing anyone from leaving the UK to seek whatever treatment they wish to waste their money on, no matter how futile. At least not as far as I know.
They are, however, not allowing parents to get their kids futile medical treatments since they feel the moral obligation of defending said children's rights of bodily integrity.
Do you think the UK prevented this for some petty reason? Cause I certainly wouldn't know what you think might be the reason to apparently let this kid die without a supposedly oh-so-great treatment.
But at this point, I doubt this conversation will go anywhere but downwards, since there seems to be differences in opinion based on certain cultural perceptions of the rights of individuals and the extend of the authority of parents over their children.
At this point it might be best to agree to disagree.
So, in the interest of protecting individual freedoms, you're going to bat for Nazi vivisection?
Basically, you are saying that personal freedom trumps collectivism, above all else, how dare anyone get in the way of freedom, unless your personal freedom stands in the way of medical progress, in which case, any number of ethical violations and actual crimes against humanity are okay, freedom and consent be damned, because the collective is entitled to the wisdom brought about from experimenting on your parts?
There's a slippery slope based on the "the end justifies the means" mindset of just going through with experiments on living human beings as far as there is medical knowledge to be had.
If the well-being of a single patient is outweighted by potential benefits to future patients, you soon end up with people like Josef Mengele.
