Should Doctors Be Able to Override a Parent’s Decision and Euthanize a Loved One?
Many people have been weighing in about the story of Charlie Gard, a 10 month old infant the UK courts ruled to take off life support, despite the parent’s wishes. The parents fought the doctors decision, but essentially the courts upheld it after they deemed it was more humane. Charlie suffers from Mitochondrial DNA depletion system, which weakens the muscles and internal organs, leading to a short an painful life for those affected. While I agree that ending Charlie’s life is probably the most humane thing to do, I do not believe this is the court’s decision to make.
In times of grieving we can act irrationally and sometimes prolong the inevitable for no reason, but as parents, children, or relatives of the loved ones affected, we have the right to do so. The doctors see Charlie as a patient and are doing what is best for the patient in their minds. I don’t think anyone here is trying to maliciously end the life of a child, but the choice must be left with the parents of Charlie. Denying their wishes for a dying child and taking them to court to get an order to remove the life support is disgusting in my opinion. They pay their taxes and will pay part of the bill for keeping Charlie on life support so this shouldn’t even be an issue.
I understand they want to end Charlie’s life out for humane reasons, but in reality he isn’t even conscious, so this shouldn’t be a problem either. If the parents want to keep Charlie alive until the last possible second, out of hope , they should be allowed to do so as a basic right. We don’t take patients who receive news that they have a 99% chance to die of cancer in the next month and say “hey let’s just end it now since we know you are going to die”. They have every right to try their odds until the end and no government or court system should be able to step in and say otherwise. I could understand if they want to end their lives and giving them the okay to do so , but the second you pull the plug the chance of death becomes 100%.
Again, for me this isn’t an issue of what is the most humane way of treating the situation. I do honestly believe that if we are talking strictly about quality of life, Charlie is probably better off being taken off life support, but this is NOT the court’s decision to do so. This to me is an issue of human and patient rights to choose what happens to your love one and not allowing someone to over ride your choice. As the parent you should have the ultimate say in choosing if or when to pull the plug, no one else. It isn’t like they can fight the court with appeals either, come Friday, Charlie will be gone. Unless the courts change their mind because of public outcry, there is no other outcome as of now.
Thanks to @Elyaque for the badges
This is an exceptionally difficult subject. So, thank you for tackling it. I agree with you. The decision should be in the hands of the parents alone, plain and simple. We could spend decades arguing over the humanity of such a decision but the real issue is that humanity is making that decision. Humanity is deciding how and why to suffer. Parents make that decision for their children, for good or bad; that is the realm parents must live in. Courts and governments should have no place in such deliberations.
" Parents make that decision for their children, for good or bad; that is the realm parents must live in. Courts and governments should have no place in such deliberations."
What about when parents make the decision to abuse their child? Doesn't the government already have the right to step in and protect individuals from suffering (Child protective services)? I guess one could argue that in Charlies situation that it would be abusive whether the fault is on the parents or doctors to allow Charlie to suffer when its very unlikely that the child is going to recover. So I would argue that the government does have the right and duty to step in and prevent suffering of its citizens. Of course in medical situations like this the right should only be exercised when its obvious that the individual is unlikely to be healed in order to end the suffering.
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That's a slippery slope that I won't set foot on. You have your own right to disagree with how parents treat their children, the government only has what power is conceded to them by the governed. That power should not invade the family structure. I'm not particularly familiar with medical condition at issue. It truly doesn't matter. Parents are free to make mistakes; barring criminal behavior which is typically supported by decades, if not centuries, of common law values. It's important to consider the difference between disagreeing and invoking the violent force of the state.
I'd say doctors murdering a patient is a hell of a lot worse than parents trying to keep them alive, any day of the week. Murder is murder, no matter how you toss the dice.
I agree @adhoctoth
I would argue that when it comes to someone suffering in some way that the government does have a right to step in and PREVENT such suffering from taking place. For example how is this situation different from child protective services which is a government agency stepping in and taking a child away from a neglecting family. I would argue its really not any different from Charlie's situation and that its the governments duty to protect its citizens from suffering.
"If the parents want to keep Charlie alive until the last possible second, out of hope , they should be allowed to do so as a basic right."
UNLESS that basic right is overriding Charlies right to NOT suffer. Which it would be therefore they shouldn't have that right at the expense at Charlie's.
Of course in situations such as Charlie's I think that the government should only step in when its inhuman to keep someone on life support (Due to suffering) and they have a low chance at recovering. That seems to be what this specific situation is without checking other sources on the issue.
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So you presume to comprehend what is human and what is inhuman? That is the sort of discretion governments should not have. You're conflating rights with duties. The government has no duty to prevent Charlie from suffering, they have a duty to not cause that suffering without due process of the law. You don't have the right NOT to suffer, nor does Charlie. You have the right to pursue life and liberty that affects the manner in which you suffer.
The decision to remove life support should belong with the family alone, for better or worse. Physicians should serve their clients as governments should serve citizens. Such service should never include the decision to remove life support unless by some unlucky turn the patient is a ward of the government. Would you consider it inhuman for me to do everything in my power to keep you alive, even if the likelihood was next to none and I was causing you some immeasurable amount of pain? Once you've answered that question, I'd like to point out the next item you should consider. That being, you're opinion is simply that and it should not have any impact at all upon the care Charlie receives. Your current line of reasoning would allow the government to decided when it would be "most human" to take anyone off life support.
I say this with no malice or ill will: you're coming across as arrogant and as though you have the insight required to make life and death decisions for other peoples' children. If you think that your insight allows you to have a say over the loved one of another, that's where you become wrong and egotistical. Please consider the difference between duties and rights. They are very different. You have no right over anyone other than yourself and your children, until they become adults or you behave criminally around them.
If the child were in America it would be kept alive to maximize profits in the for profit health care system with the parent's insurance company pulling the plug when benefits capped out.
Ya that's true. We really need more laws in America that insure that the government protects individuals from unnecessary suffering and therefore partly preventing suffering individuals from being used in that way.
No, you actually need less laws and a return to the libertarian style of thinking that formed your republic. Nobody has a right to anybody else's labor. That would be slavery.
I think this is every parent's nightmare. I've lost two (grown) children to terminal illness, thankfully before the "pull the plug" decision had to be made. Because of the inevitability of their diagnosis, there was a possibility of having to make this type of decision. As a parent, had that decision been tried in the court of public opinion, a true legal court, or used as a political football with the US president and even the Pope weighing in, I would have been devastated. Watching your child die from a terminal illness before your eyes is difficult enough, having courts, media and complete strangers weigh in on that heart wrenching decision is beyond anything I could contemplate and borders on inhuman cruelty.
Thank you for the way you handled a very difficult topic.
I agree with you. I think everyone deserves a fighting chance.
I don't know what should be the "right" thing to do but I feel that no one has the right to take another's life.
What if someone is suffering and there is no way to end that suffering unless you end their life?
Murder is STILL wrong.
What this story is really about is limits. And it brings up an interesting point -- whose job is it to set limits?
Calaber24p, you make the point that it should only be up to the parents. As you say,
But that is a very individualistic standpoint, in the sense that you believe it is up to the individual to decide how money is spent.
But -- that is not how a community works. If the point your are making is that the community should take care of its own, then it is up to the community to make those decisions. They have limited resources, and it is their job to allocate those resources in the best way they know how. Choosing to keep Charlie on life support indefinitely, even though he is not getting any more conscious life out of it, and even though there is no reasonable hope for recovery, means that money can't be spent on someone else. That means no cancer treatment for someone else. No heart transplant for someone. Resources are not bottomless, as much as we like to pretend they are when government allocates them, but remember that government has no resources of its own. So the resources that Charlie will be spending will be resources taken from other members of society.
In a true individualistic society, societal funding wouldn't even be part of the picture and we wouldn't be having this discussion. The family would keep Charlie alive until the cost to do so would not make sense given the quality of life they are buying in return. And they would voluntarily choose to pull the plug themselves. And they would grieve his loss and would correctly see that the culprit was his illness that no one caused, rather than getting stuck in the mind fuck of believing that it is everyone else's duty to pour the resources of society out for them without measure until they are sated.
So you see -- society needs to make a choice. Either we are an individualistic society that assigns such great value to the individual that we allow individuals to be free but temper this by pairing it with individual responsibility, or we choose to be a village and temper the overwhelming strain on the shared resources by giving the village the right to allocate resources as they see best.
What we are trying to do right now, which is to argue that the individual is so sacred that society must redirect resources towards any and all individuals without limitations, is a recipe for collapse in a hell of a hurry, because it represents a system whose feedback loops have been severed, which means that the system will experience positive feedback until the demands on it become impossible.
Either the individual is in charge, in which case the individual pays for it, or society is in charge, in which case society pays for it. What we are trying to do now is the worst of both worlds, where the individual is in charge and society pays for it. That's not stable.
This is such a sticky subject. I think we're walking a very fine line here when we talk about what society should be able to decide for others. The purpose of our laws is to help prevent people from their rights being infringed upon, but things like this can get dangerously close to infringing upon peoples rights.
One could argue that Charlie a child has the right to be protected from unnecessary suffering. Specifically if there is no hope of recovery.
I think its a discussion we should have with our loved ones not a nice one but important to know of a loved ones wishes so that you can fight for them if ever comes a time they cannot fight for themselves. <<< from personal experience. Interesting topic! & a very important one
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