Europe, Boring Until it's Not

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

If it is really that simple, then fine, but I suspect it isn't.

However, I think most on this board would agree that what the parents wish for a child is not necessarily in the child's best interest. For instance, when parents want to start their toddlers on hormone therapy for gender reassignment. The moral argument for parents to have absolute freedom to make decisions for their children is specious at best.

In this case, the consensus on the total lack of brain activity and chance for any sort of recovery is pretty clear, and the doctors who have been treating the child might have a better insight into what the most compassionate path is than the Italian doctors.

You really really want to stay on that fence don’t you.

I find I rarely have all the information or expertise required to make meaningful, life altering decisions for myself, much less other people, so the fence is really the place to be.

[nmoore63]

If it is really that simple, then fine, but I suspect it isn't.

However, I think most on this board would agree that what the parents wish for a child is not necessarily in the child's best interest. For instance, when parents want to start their toddlers on hormone therapy for gender reassignment. The moral argument for parents to have absolute freedom to make decisions for their children is specious at best.

In this case, the consensus on the total lack of brain activity and chance for any sort of recovery is pretty clear, and the doctors who have been treating the child might have a better insight into what the most compassionate path is than the Italian doctors.

You really really want to stay on that fence don’t you.

I find I rarely have all the information or expertise required to make meaningful, life altering decisions for myself, much less other people, so the fence is really the place to be.

Nope.

Whether or not a child is being murdered is in question.

This is not solely philosophical debate.
The data is available.

staying on fence is a depraved place to be.

[SuburbanFarmer]

What happens if I don’t want a medical procedure that’s “in my best interest”? Do I get strapped to a gurney, and forced?

No because you can speak for yourself. You have the right to refuse treatment or issue a DNR notice. No one can force treatment on you. This is why the child has to be represented by someone other than parent or doctor.Someone has to argue for the childs right to refuse treatment. If not the State then who? Better the Law courts than the Church or the Health Secretary.

Parents don’t have the right to speak for their children?

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Who has the right to decide what is in the child's best interest?

That is a very good question.

I would say nobody, but there are, sometimes, very unfortunate circumstances where a decision is required, and the child isn't capable of making it themselves. There are issues of expertise, or even emotional distance, that make parents less than ideal candidates for making that decision.

Who are you to insert yourself into the decisions of other families?

If the child is objectively harmed by child abuse, the harm of you interfering with their autonomy could very well become an unfortunate side-effect of you doing what is good for the child.

But here you have no obvious abuse. Indeed, most of the world disagrees with the British government. A good portion of Britons are disgusted by this as well.

You cannot make the argument that, because sometimes abuse is so grave that the state must interfere with the parents in the best interests of the child that the state ALWAYS has that right, even when substantial disagreement about the justification for that action exists.

Not being the child's doctor or an officer of the court, I am not inserting myself into anything, and am not claiming any right to.

Weren't you just pointing out motte and bailey fallacies somewhere on this board? I hardly think that relying on the opinions of doctors in this tragic case of a child with neurodegenerative disease can be interpreted as a broad argument in favor of the state always being able to countermand the wishes of parents.

[Montegriffo]

What happens if I don’t want a medical procedure that’s “in my best interest”? Do I get strapped to a gurney, and forced?

No because you can speak for yourself. You have the right to refuse treatment or issue a DNR notice. No one can force treatment on you. This is why the child has to be represented by someone other than parent or doctor.Someone has to argue for the childs right to refuse treatment. If not the State then who? Better the Law courts than the Church or the Health Secretary.

Parents don’t have the right to speak for their children?

Of course they do, they don't have ultimate authority to do so though. Other voices such as the doctors also get the right to speak for the child.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

You really really want to stay on that fence don’t you.

I find I rarely have all the information or expertise required to make meaningful, life altering decisions for myself, much less other people, so the fence is really the place to be.

Nope.

Whether or not a child is being murdered is in question.

This is not solely philosophical debate.
The data is available.

staying on fence is a depraved place to be.

Well, if this is about 'whether or not a child is being murdered,' then I would say that is a philosophical question, and I don't think that letting a brain dead child die is the same as murdering a child. Not on the fence there.

I am on the fence about whether or not the doctors who have been caring for the child are the best arbiters of when or where that child should be allowed to die.

[SuburbanFarmer]

No because you can speak for yourself. You have the right to refuse treatment or issue a DNR notice. No one can force treatment on you. This is why the child has to be represented by someone other than parent or doctor.Someone has to argue for the childs right to refuse treatment. If not the State then who? Better the Law courts than the Church or the Health Secretary.

Parents don’t have the right to speak for their children?

Of course they do, they don't have ultimate authority to do so though. Other voices such as the doctors also get the right to speak for the child.

Voices sure. But outside of cases of gross abuse, those voices should not be given weight. Here it seems, they have total authority.

[Montegriffo]

I am on the fence about whether or not the doctors who have been caring for the child are the best arbiters of when or where that child should be allowed to die.

Well they aren't, that responsibility rests with the courts, the doctors are just part of the evidence.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

I am on the fence about whether or not the doctors who have been caring for the child are the best arbiters of when or where that child should be allowed to die.

Well they aren't, that responsibility rests with the courts, the doctors are just part of the evidence.

Right, well, courts then.

We'll just say, anyone who isn't a child's parents who are tasked with making decisions on behalf of a child.

[JohnDonne]

I hate being in the majority opinion in any argument, but the state allows terminally Ill children to consciously suffer much greater pain than a brain-destroyed baby trapped in a peaceful coma. What little reason there is to suppose that being on life support is causing mental distress to a mind they already claim is gone forever can be ameliorated with the same pain killers they would use on the baby in the event they decide to starve or suffocate it to death. And if they don’t want to take part in keeping it alive because it wastes resources, then they can let the parents and the Italian government do what they think is best for the baby, which happens to be exactly what the U.K. government was doing until recently.

So from where I stand, the “child’s best interests” side of the debate has to make an extraordinary argument to justify the extraordinary action of removing parental custody in order to kill their child for “The child’s best interests.” The burden of proof is on the doctors and the state, if they want something short of public outrage. And having failed to do that they cannot be surprised that they are called tyrannical.