You can receive emails from George Soros and be opposed to his opinion and actions.
Warren Buffett Says America Is "So Rich" It Can Afford Single Payer
- Thread starter Banjo
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You can receive emails from George Soros and be opposed to his opinion and actions.
After all Soros has done and said, why would you want to hear any more of his bilge? (Same goes for Obama, BTW.)
So you know what your opponent is up to?
He's made it plain to the world what he's "up to". And Nighthawk is apparently an advocate.
That's a load of bullshit. You are the one that is uninformed. It's not the Terri Schiavo case as you previously claimed. No one was offering to try an experimental procedure to save Terri Schiavo. Name a single medical professional who offered to try any experimental procedure to save her. You can't come up with a single name. Terri tragically suffered brain damage and had no chance (according to medical professionals) of obtaining a normal life. Whereas medical professionals are putting their reputation on the line and offering to try an experimental procedure on Charlie because other kids in a similar state have survived on similar experimental procedures. And why not try it? If the family wants to do it and there's some very slim chance of survival, what's to lose? At the very least, the medical community would at least gain more medical knowledge regardless of the outcome and the family would feel more at peace knowing that they did everything possible to save their child.
http://www.charliesfight.org/
Let me ask you a hypothetical question...
I appreciate that, in a case where there is nothing to lose, an experimental treatment that has a non-zero chance of success is worthwhile, assuming that it costs nothing. As you suggest, it may be worth it just because it might increase our understanding of the condition. However, what if I told you that Charlie Gard, the subject of these decisions, is in pain and suffering? Would you still consider "experiments" that involve him worth the price?
And you're clearly not all that familiar with the Terri Schiavo case. The appeal cases known as Schiavo III and Schiavo IV involved a possibility of an experimental "vasodilation" treatment advocated by Dr William Hammesfahr and Terri Schiavo's parents. The Second District Court of Appeals ruled to uphold the decision to take Terri Schiavo off life support and rejected the appeals.
My point here is not to claim that I know who is right in the Charlie Gard case: the hospital medics or his parents. And God forbid I ever have to face a choice that Charlie's parents are facing. My point is that the Charlie Gard case, much like the Terri Schiavo case, is about an argument between two sets of people who have a different view of what's best for Charlie. Just like with Terri Schiavo, politicians and religious figures are now involved. Please forgive me for being a cynic, but somehow I don't think that it's because they care about Charlie. Rather it's because Charlie's case is a convenient "vessel" for their agenda, whatever it might be.
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You are correct about Dr. Hammesfahr. There was actually someone willing to experiment on Terri despite the majority medical opinion being that she was brain dead and had no hope of recovery. I still think this case is different because Charlie still has some shot at a normal life whereas Terri was brain dead so the risk : reward equation appears very different.
The only person that has the right to answer that question -- whether to kill Charlie or attempt to save him would be Charlie himself. Unfortunately, Charlie can't answer that question. You're also correct in saying that is a similarity between this case and the Schiavo case. So who would be qualified to answer that question? His parents or the courts? And that's the difference between this case and the Schiavo case. In the Schiavo case, the husband wanted to terminate life support whereas in this case, the family of Charlie wants to pursue an experiment that might extend or save Charlie. So therefore, let the family decide. Medical decisions should be as close to personal as possible (if not the individual, then default to family decision). If the situation was flipped and the courts were blocking Charlie's parents decision to end life support, I would support the parents in that case too. As far as the pain and suffering argument, how do we know that Charlie would want to kill himself? How do we know that he would not choose to endure perhaps a few years of pain in exchange for perhaps a wonderful and fulfilling life after that point? If he was near the end of his life, I could see how the risk : rewards would be different. But why assume that everyone would want to die in that situation and so too would Charlie?
Your arguments are reasonable and I certainly can agree with several of your points...
The issue, however, is a really complicated one. In the US, Canada and the UK (probably others, too), the guiding principle for any doctor providing care to a child is based on the "best-interest standard". What happens in those rare cases when a genuine conflict arises between the wishes of the child's surrogates (in Charlie Gard's case, his parents) and what the doctors perceive as their ethical and legal duty to act in the best interest of the child? Both the parents and the doctors could be wrong, they could have ulterior motives and conflicts, etc. The involvement of courts in such cases is almost inevitable.
There are some relevant cases in the US. For instance, this is the famous "Baby K" case from the 90s:
http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/16/590/492033/
There are a few others:
http://www.leagle.com/decision/1989832145Misc2d687_1710/ALVARADO v. HEALTH & HOSPS.
http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/116/295/2576073/
There are lots of discussions of the various issues involved out there. For instance, chapter 8 of the book titled "When Children Die: Improving Palliative and End-of-Life Care for Children and Their Families", which you can find here:
https://www.nap.edu/read/10390/chapter/10
My point here again isn't to agree or disagree with you. It just seems that sometimes particularly difficult end-of-life decisions end up in courts, where judges have to make the final choice. The UK isn't special in that regard.
I see that you know this issue and similar legal events very well. What I have stated about my belief that medical decisions should be made as close to the patient as possible is just my opinion. I can't prove that it's correct. Part of it is somewhat religious. Regarding your question about what doctors should do when there is a disagreement between parents and them, specifically "what the doctors perceive as their ethical and legal duty to act in the best interest of the child" at what point do doctors say to remove life support? Obviously, one case would be when they see no hope of recovery -- brain death. But if there is some hope that the patient can eventually regain consciousness, unless the patient has consciousness and indicates that they want to die, wouldn't the default action be to attempt to save the patient? I thought this was tied to the Hippocratic Oath, but there have obviously been some exceptions to that -- abortion, capital punishment via lethal injection, and euthanasia so maybe it no longer applies. I'll ask my brother who is a med student about this. As you're probably aware, these end of life issues come up a lot more frequently than most people realize. When two out of my four grandparents "passed away" it wasn't really their decision to go to hospice... A lot of people want to believe that most people pass away peacefully in their sleep. That's not the case. What happens at the end of life is usually quite terrible and hard to watch.
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Yes, like I said, I respect your opinion, whether it's based on religious belief or anything else... I understand your arguments.
I, like yourself, struggle with these issues, because they are complicated, difficult and fraught with emotion and pain. As I've said, god forbid I ever have to be in the position that any of the people involved in Charlie Gard's case find themselves in, especially his parents, obviously.
That said, I just don't see how else you can handle a rare situation where the various people just cannot agree on what's best for the child. In our setting, such conflicts end up in the hands of the legal system and we have to accept its decisions. I wish I had better ideas, but I don't.