Child killing poll

[Montegriffo]

The Pope has a jet on standby and the Italian hospital is willing to cover the health expenses.

The British government decided it would rather kill him than let him go to a different country to seek treatment.

There is no treatment. You keep ignoring this fact. All the Vatican was offering was continued life support with no chance of improvement to his condition or quality of life.
Prolonged existence as a zombie teddy bear has been ruled not in the childs interest.

Who's child is it? The crown or the parents?

It has not been legal to own a person for quite some time.

[BjornP]

The Pope has a jet on standby and the Italian hospital is willing to cover the health expenses.

The British government decided it would rather kill him than let him go to a different country to seek treatment.

There is no treatment. You keep ignoring this fact. All the Vatican was offering was continued life support with no chance of improvement to his condition or quality of life.
Prolonged existence as a zombie teddy bear has been ruled not in the childs interest.

Who's child is it? The crown or the parents?

Children aren't the property of their parents, they are parents. Do children have rights? Do parents have an absolute right to determine what's best for their child? Are infants citizens that ought to be afforded a citizens rights to have the legal system protect him as such? Ask yourself those questions, instead.

[Ex-California]

There is no treatment. You keep ignoring this fact. All the Vatican was offering was continued life support with no chance of improvement to his condition or quality of life.
Prolonged existence as a zombie teddy bear has been ruled not in the childs interest.

Who's child is it? The crown or the parents?

Children aren't the property of their parents, they are parents. Do children have rights? Do parents have an absolute right to determine what's best for their child? Are infants citizens that ought to be afforded a citizens rights to have the legal system protect him as such? Ask yourself those questions, instead.

The rights of the parents to determine what's best for the child should supersede those rights of the state, especially when the state is pushing for death the the parents are pushing for life. The legal system is pushing to kill in this case

The state is a service, nothing more. The family unit is infinitely more important than the state

[BjornP]

Who's child is it? The crown or the parents?

Children aren't the property of their parents, they are parents. Do children have rights? Do parents have an absolute right to determine what's best for their child? Are infants citizens that ought to be afforded a citizens rights to have the legal system protect him as such? Ask yourself those questions, instead.

The rights of the parents to determine what's best for the child should supersede those rights of the state, especially when the state is pushing for death the the parents are pushing for life. The legal system is pushing to kill in this case

The state is a service, nothing more. The family unit is infinitely more important than the state

Interesting framing. I'll go with that. So: Ok, the state is a service. So, how do you justify having a legal system in the United States? How do you justify the right and the concept of The State getting to decide who is guilty of committing crimes or not? A man accused and sentenced of a crime is certainly a man that The State does NOT offer a service to, is he now? Hell, how do you justify the right of another citizen to take you to court? Sure, The State is providing a service to ONE party, the guy who dragged you to court, but what about you? It's doing a disservice to you, individually... Does that invalidate the purpose of The State if it acts against your individual interests and wants?

[Otern]

I'm not sure how I feel about all this really. On one hand, the parents obviously should have a say in what happens to their child. But on the other hand, it's not up to the parents to decide what really is the best for the child in every case. The child is neither the states, nor the parents "property".

So, a braindead kid, with no chance of living. It might be for the best for that child to stop treatment, and let it die. But then we're also entering dangerous territory.

I voted in the UK's approval on this poll, but I'm really not sure. Because logic like this has been used to commit atrocities in the past, like Aktion T4, 14f13 and the Ostarbeiterkinderpflegestätten. Those things started off like that too, and evolved into some really awful shit.

[Ex-California]

Children aren't the property of their parents, they are parents. Do children have rights? Do parents have an absolute right to determine what's best for their child? Are infants citizens that ought to be afforded a citizens rights to have the legal system protect him as such? Ask yourself those questions, instead.

The rights of the parents to determine what's best for the child should supersede those rights of the state, especially when the state is pushing for death the the parents are pushing for life. The legal system is pushing to kill in this case

The state is a service, nothing more. The family unit is infinitely more important than the state

Interesting framing. I'll go with that. So: Ok, the state is a service. So, how do you justify having a legal system in the United States? How do you justify the right and the concept of The State getting to decide who is guilty of committing crimes or not? A man accused and sentenced of a crime is certainly a man that The State does NOT offer a service to, is he now? Hell, how do you justify the right of another citizen to take you to court? Sure, The State is providing a service to ONE party, the guy who dragged you to court, but what about you? It's doing a disservice to you, individually... Does that invalidate the purpose of The State if it acts against your individual interests and wants?

A crime is one person violating the rights of another person. The state's service provision when it comes to law enforcement is acting as an impartial 3rd party between two or more individuals with a grievance against each other

[Otern]

The rights of the parents to determine what's best for the child should supersede those rights of the state, especially when the state is pushing for death the the parents are pushing for life. The legal system is pushing to kill in this case

The state is a service, nothing more. The family unit is infinitely more important than the state

Both agree and disagree on that. The rights of the parents shouldn't always supersede the rights of the child, which could be defined by the state.

For example, circumcision, violence against children and so on. Some parents might consider it a normal way to raise children. The state intervenes, because of the rights of the individual(the child), has been breached by the parents. The state is supposed to protect individual rights, and it therefore makes sense to intervene. Even though they're family, people shouldn't have unlimited power over their family members, because that could also lead to awful shit.

But then again, the parents in this case is pushing for life, and the authorities are pushing for death. I don't think it should matter what the parents are pushing for. In some cases they might be pushing for death, and the state would too, and it would in reality be the same problem. The question remains, is it morally right to stop treatment, when that would mean death? Stopping to feed a person who can't feed itself could be crossing a line. But also, if keeping the child alive causes more harm to it, than letting it die naturally, it could also be considered crossing an ethical line to keep it alive.

It all boils down to what causes the least harm. Don't know what causes the least harm in this case, but we should be REALLY careful when determining actual death is the preferable option to keeping someone alive. Because there are lots of retarded people, who can't speak up for themselves. And if we can determine their death as "less harmful", we're entering dangerous territory. Even if the parents of those retards agree with the state on euthanasia.

[Fife]

Alfie's dead. Now it's time for the NHS to carve him up and sell off the parts.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43933056

[SuburbanFarmer]

Child rights = adult rights.. ok then, are they enforcing starvation of adult patients in the same vegetative state? Against the wishes of the family?


Side note: the article above says that he was granted Italian citizenship on Monday, but still not allowed to leave. Italian law applies here as well, does it not?

[BjornP]

The rights of the parents to determine what's best for the child should supersede those rights of the state, especially when the state is pushing for death the the parents are pushing for life. The legal system is pushing to kill in this case

The state is a service, nothing more. The family unit is infinitely more important than the state

Interesting framing. I'll go with that. So: Ok, the state is a service. So, how do you justify having a legal system in the United States? How do you justify the right and the concept of The State getting to decide who is guilty of committing crimes or not? A man accused and sentenced of a crime is certainly a man that The State does NOT offer a service to, is he now? Hell, how do you justify the right of another citizen to take you to court? Sure, The State is providing a service to ONE party, the guy who dragged you to court, but what about you? It's doing a disservice to you, individually... Does that invalidate the purpose of The State if it acts against your individual interests and wants?

A crime is one person violating the rights of another person. The state's service provision when it comes to law enforcement is acting as an impartial 3rd party between two or more individuals with a grievance against each other

In this case a public hospital representing the NHS and two parents were in conflict. The courts decided the hospital is in the right. Are private citizens not allowed to take state actors to court in the US? Is the American legal system also "The State", or is it an impartial 3rd actor in cases between private citizen and state actors?