Perhaps the worst news story I have read in a long time

wvernon · Oct 8, 2004

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/story.jsp?story=569954

Doctrine1st · Oct 8, 2004

It should be up to those who legally have the say, but then again who is it being unmericful here?

Grizzly · Oct 8, 2004

Is God dead?

BobbieDog · Oct 8, 2004

This is a landmark legal case, setting precedent with unlimited horizon of consequence.

The basis on which the case was brought and fought was unsatisfactory. The debates were not had, because the perspectives which might have allowed that, were simply not led.

Dimensions of motivation, in the bringing of this case, were not addressed. This case was crucially about resource allocation, in an era of technologically led and advancing medicine. This was a triage case: who is to get advantage of our resources; who is to make these decisions.

This case was also about the relative powers of experts, administrators, and those subject to the care enabled through that expertise and administration. The case was decided in favour of expertise and administration, and against the patient and their immediate carers, without these issues being explicitly presented and considered.

Around all this was thrown the issue of faith: where the matters and nature of faith was simple never effectively led in court; it being reductively dismissed, by some default, as little more than sentiment.

The seriousness and ill crafted nature of this case cannot be underestimated. At the very least its fateful judgment must wake up many to the need to take to the field of a battle: for what has triumphed in this judgment is not sufficiently of living hope.

MadeInOz · Oct 8, 2004

dang that's not good...

Lioness816 · Oct 8, 2004

That is very sad. I would never want to be in the Judge's shoes. I feel a horrible pain for her and her parent's. I find comfort in knowing she will be with Jesus where she will be able to see and hear, run and play and be in eternal peace...

BobbieDog · Oct 8, 2004

Lioness816 said:
That is very sad. I would never want to be in the Judge's shoes. I feel a horrible pain for her and her parent's. I find comfort in knowing she will be with Jesus where she will be able to see and hear, run and play and be in eternal peace...

How do we take the faith you here witness into legal setting? Such that it goes toe to toe with other perspective, such as experts and administrators: such that it has body in that courtroom, such that it convinces and persuades; such that it is substantive weight that is placed in the balances of justice, and its legal judgment?

How do you go into the lion's den of modern setting? Who and what is Daniel in setting of current earthly powers?

How does your faith become, even for a moment, the atmosphere breathed by a court? How does that court become, even for a moment, an annex of heaven?

Jesus taught us to love our neighbours, here and now, and on this earth: and I do wonder whether Jesus was fully and sufficiently represented in the court room of such judgment.

Its not that I feel the judgment must be seen as intrinsically wrong, although it might well be. Its rather that the true facts of the case were not presented, therefore not considered: while in the real world decisions which it sets precedent for, these real and un-presented facts will be the ones acted on. This case went through on a bit of a flim flam: its presentation was on foundation wriggling with slip sliding dimensions; this case creates a black box for experts and administrators to take unaccountable disposal over others, in matters of life and death.

Charlotte Wyatt has been condemned in a rigged case: and this case has set the parameters on who in future might live, or might die. Implicitly these doctors argued against Charlotte living, because she would grow up disabled, if she were to live. While not intended so, this judgment is a default instrument of eugenics: and there are few things more serious than that.

Geri Hatrick · Oct 8, 2004

BobbieDog said:
...this judgment is a default instrument of eugenics: and there are few things more serious than that.

How is this a default instrument of eugenics, BobbieDog? The girl was being artificially kept alive, and she would have suffered dreadfully if she was to continue her life.

Sometimes death is the kindest way. And it was God's will, right? Man was opposing God's will by trying to keeping her alive. I think that is selfish and cruel.

But yes, I agree it is a very tragic story. I am a parent, and I cannot imagine the pain and mourning Charlotte's mother and father must be going through.

BobbieDog · Oct 8, 2004

Geri Hatrick said:
How is this a default instrument of eugenics, BobbieDog? The girl was being artificially kept alive, and she would have suffered dreadfully if she was to continue her life.

Geri Hatrick said:
Sometimes death is the kindest way. And it was God's will, right? Man was opposing God's will by trying to keeping her alive. I think that is selfish and cruel.

But yes, I agree it is a very tragic story. I am a parent, and I cannot imagine the pain and mourning Charlotte's mother and father must be going through.

It is a default instrument of eugenics, because the argument that Charlotte would at best be disabled, was advanced to support the case for her not being extended that medical care that would have kept her alive in the present.

That argument was openly and explicitly connected to the further argument that the same resource directed to Charlottes care, would better benefit "normal" and "healthy" children in other settings.

These arguments were separate from the argument concerning Charlotte's "terrible" quality of life: which I do not believe would have carried the legal day, had they been advanced alone.

The triage or eugenic arguments were advanced to bolster the case: but in so doing escaped explicit scrutiny; as the verdict formally rested on the quality of life argument.

However, these triage or eugenic arguments are now generally strengthened: and because decisions will occur within the unaccountable black box of "expert opinion"; these triage or eugenic arguments can now have much unaccountable sway in future years.

You then raise a theological point: where you equate God with nature; and exclude human capacity from nature.

I accept that theology, but it is not mine: where I see medical capacity as as much God given as is anything and everything else.

The case is crucially about medical advances: resource intensive medical advances; where we now feel we have to ask the question, "when do we start, when do we stop".

I welcome that question: but I then wish it to be addressed and consider in proper perspective.

Through our capacities, here medicine, over which we have some disposal, we become co-workers with God: we can give or withhold care that can sustain life; we must ask these questions in perspective which includes God. That was not done, in any manner, in this instance.

There then is the further question as to what is acceptable and tolerable existence: where again we can act as God; ending another's being, if we so see fit. Current experience is, that what was once seen as intolerable, on all sorts of fronts: can be overcome gloriously. Look at the triumph of the Paralympics, look at the major advances in the inclusive care of the autistic and the schizophrenic. Children who doctors used to routinely leave to die, now live rewarding lives, even in their disabilities: and the rest of us learn from every step that is taken in their care.

It is not that this judgment was avoidable, or intrinsically wrong. It is that it has been made on wrong basis: and too loosely and unaccountably; and may yet have fateful consequences.

UberLutheran · Oct 8, 2004

wvernon said:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/story.jsp?story=569954

In fact, I understand losing a child is one of the very worst experiences that one can go through.

Losing a child under circumstances like this is incomprehensible.

We can say what we like in the forum, but whatever we say is really moot considering the trauma the parents are experiencing at this time.

phoenixdna · Oct 8, 2004

I don't believe in the preservation of life at all costs. I think that is a very unwise and shortsighted notion. In this case its clear that forcing this child to live in constant agony and pain when there is no hope for recovery is nothing more than a cruel torture. I feel bad for the parents, but they don't have the best interests of their child at heart here at all. I can understand they are hurt and in pain and that this will cloud their judgement so I am not blaming them. But wanting to keep a baby alive who is suffering and in constant pain is a selfish desire and not a humanitarian one at all.

The problem here is that as medical technology gets more and more advanced we are able to sustain life longer and longer. There is a day in our future when doctors will be able to keep anyone alive no matter what the ailment indefinately. Imagine a 500 year old man who can't move, can't breathe, can't see, hear, speak, and whose body weights 50 lbs and is literally bones with a withered layer of wrinkled skin on top. Do we preserve his life for another 100 years because its sacred? Right now this may seem like a preposterous example, but in 100 years or perhaps even 50 this could very well be a reality. At some point we have to realize that just because we can keep someone alive doesn't mean we should or that this is the moral and humanitarian thing to do. Its a tough call sometimes and I don't envy the judge at all, but these decisions have to be made and when you have the best interest of the patient in mind then often you are going to have to allow them to pass on and out of their constant misery.

BobbieDog · Oct 8, 2004

I feel bad for the parents, but they don't have the best interests of their child at heart here at all.

You present a cogent position phoenixdna: with numerous points of real quality; matters which should be debated, and put to legal test.

The point is that they were not so debated, and were therefore not put to legal test.

What was upheld was what you claim in this quote: and it is this that comes to deeply concern me. The parent's case could in fact have been presented far more strongly: many of the planks of the hospitals case could have been easily demolished. What the case eventually came down to was an expert opinion that the quality of life of Charlotte was intolerably poor: and a failure to present the parent's case as being based in anything other than wrongheaded sentiment. You go further, in saying "they don't have the best interests of their child at heart".

I do not agree. They had an alternate understanding of the child's interests. They also had a largely unexplored faith relation to their child: their Christianity and that relation, appear to have been inseparable.

Now these matters: that of their understanding of the child's interests, and that of their faith in their relation to their child; do not close the case for them. Rather, they are matters which if better presented in court, should have been substantive part of what was considered, in coming to judgment.

I'm a dyslexic parent of two dyslexic children, and I'm used to having to face down the massed ranks of educational experts, who know better than I what is best for my children: where, when once so faced down, the unanimity of perspective they often present, and wish to impose on others, can be readily disassembled; such experts, even when unanimous in their opinion, have over and over again, in various settings, so often proved to not be right. I'm a seasoned campaigner: it's taken over a decade to come to understand what managed institutions are about; then learn how to engage, countervail, and if required defeat them.

These parents would not have had that lead in time, and they have another child on the way: I can so understand why they now break off; there is nothing more terrible than being buried alive by know it all institutional process, when in fact you know the experts of that process do not in fact have it right.

I'm not even arguing the technicalities of the prognoses for Charlotte, although I'm sure they could be argued against. This hospital tried and lost a similar case some years ago: and the child involved is now a healthy disabled person.

What I'm arguing against is the process of debate and legal testing: neither occurred adequately.

Rather, just as with yourself in your judgment of the parents attitude, people came to personal opinions about the parents. The medical experts, the Justice, and now yourself: simply devalued the position of the parents; and did so as a personal judgment.

Debate and legal test require much more than that: because of the spectrum of applicability of legal judgment. All of the nuance, and diversity of opinion, and factors of balances, must be expressed in such a debate: and then must be built into the judgment. Without that subtlety, the key that the judgment represents is just far too crude.

What this judgment has strengthened is the weight of expert opinion, and the weight of administrators. Parental opinion, no matter how informed, has been weakened. No effective guidance as to how to regulate these altered weightings has been given: because the judgment was so crude; coming down to, that the parents were to be sympathized with, but were to be viewed as uninformed.

My contention would be that this could have been done better: that the relation between the parents and the hospital could have been enhanced; and that this enhancement is what should have been the focus for the court. What this case reveals, is that the laws and conventions regulating how all these parties take disposal over the child, here Charlotte: needs to be fundamentally overhauled; to better indicate what should be brought into play, when effective breakdown occurs as it did between Charlottes parents and the hospital.

In seeking to adjudicate the court lost its focus: instead of addressing the matter of what was required to enhance the relation; it chose to rule in favour of one party or another to it.

I have little doubt, that if the parents had been better positioned to take this case to the House of Lords on appeal, and then to the European Court if required: that this verdict of yesterday would be qualified.

armed2010 · Oct 8, 2004

This is what should have been done at the begining. Its downright inhuman to keep a person alive just to let them live a little longer in horrible pain.

sarahm12002 · Oct 8, 2004

I feel sorry for everyone involved. This entire situation is sad.

shprdslamb7 · Oct 8, 2004

This is what should have been done at the begining. Its downright inhuman to keep a person alive just to let them live a little longer in horrible pain.

So, are we now going to kill all developmentally disabled people because they're "suffering"? Are we resorting to "putting people to sleep" like dogs?

Atrocious.

Key Peninsula Redneck · Oct 8, 2004

Isn't that why England has a socialized health care system, so that they can afford to care for people like this?

BobbieDog · Oct 8, 2004

armed2010 said:
This is what should have been done at the begining. Its downright inhuman to keep a person alive just to let them live a little longer in horrible pain.

Where facts fit your suggestion, then you might be right: but this suggestion is, at least initially, just a suggestion of words; it has to be proved that the facts are described by the words.
To my knowledge that was not done. I saw no evidence that the medical experts called, did in fact have expertise in pain assessment. They did have expertise in directing and applying the various medical treatments to which Charlotte might have been subjected: but they did not, to my knowledge, have expertise in either pain assessment and management, nor in disability care and management.
Such matters involved disciplines which go far beyond the expertise of the eight hospital experts called.
The discipline which seemed to be absent, was what I would think of as deep psychology. A discipline in which matters of pain, disability and faith can be readily considered: as can the matters of orthodoxy and unorthodoxy.

I understand your position of righteousness indignation, where you are right in your understanding of the facts.
My concern is that we may all have been mislead by the bias of the experts and managers, as to the nature of these facts. Not that they were lying: but that they may have overstretched in their suggestion as to what their expertise covered; where I fear that the case may have been fatefully swayed by their personal opinions, rather than what has special status by virtue of disciplined expertise.

I also had grave doubts as to how qualified any Justice could hope to be in the adjudication of such a case.

redemption song · Oct 8, 2004

the philosophical and medical question arises - were the parents fighting for the preservation of life or the prolonging of death?

shprdslamb7 · Oct 8, 2004

I take care of a young man at work that has cerebral palsy. He cannot feed, bathe, nor clothe himself. In fact, he cannot do anything for himself. But, let me tell you what he CAN do. He can smile and laugh like you wouldn't believe. His laughter lights up the building most of the time and when it doesn't you know he doesn't feel good. He is not able to communicate but can jerk his head back quickly for a "yes". He laughs appropriately when he is watching tv. Now, because he cannot take care of himself, is he suffering and his quality of life bad? I think not. I know him. He's beautiful.

Charlotte is not even given a chance to have a life. That's the problem.

Look, as a nurse, I am in a rock and hard place on this one. I have seen many people that have been hooked up to tubes and have zero quality of life. I feel bad for those people. My problem is not the family choosing to let a loved one go....I think it takes great courage for that. I would hope that I could do that instead of letting someone suffer.

However, the COURT has NO RIGHT to make these decisions and it scares the HECK out of me that they are being made. This is the start of a slippery slope and sets a dangerous precedent. Do you all want the court to decide if your loved one stays alive or not? Aren't you all the very ones that harp on "Choice" when it comes to abortion but when it comes to this, it is different?

Ya'll think about this.

BobbieDog · Oct 8, 2004

[/color said:
Key Peninsula Redneck]Isn't that why England has a socialized health care system, so that they can afford to care for people like this?

This the nub.

What you say would have been the UK convention on these things, until yesterday's judgment.

That ruling is a landmark one. It fulcrums a massive change in the ethics of the UK medical services. What follows from this one ruling will affect every detail of a massive health enterprise.

It legitimates triage in medical care: and it places the power of decision of such triage in the hands of medical experts, and administrators; unaccountable decisions as to provision of medical care, can be taken on the basis of resource allocation.

I would also expect a strong counter offensive from those caring for the disabled, concerning commentary in the trial, about the life quality and chances of the disabled.

There are then deeper issues concerned with orthodoxy itself: where the establishment of any orthodoxy, which is what you tend to get with what is led by experts and managers and accountants; creates very disadvantageous conditions for a constituency requiring responses uniquely tailored to them.

The medicine we used to have was done by people. We now move towards a uniformly regulated medical provision. Where there are some who cannot make this migration, and fare best where treated under the relation intensive aegis of old.

Perhaps the worst news story I have read in a long time

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