Michael Cannon, director of health care policy at the Cato Institute, has just published a piece where he criticizes conservatives for being “all wrong” about the Alfie Evans case which, according to him “had almost nothing to do with socialized medicine.”
As hostile as libertarians are to government, even we believe government can legitimately order the withdrawal of life support, and prohibit parents from moving a child to obtain further treatment, when that treatment would fruitlessly prolong a child’s suffering – i.e., when further treatment would be akin to torture.
But the court’s decision to prevent Alfie’s parents from obtaining the free care offered by the Vatican had nothing to do with limiting the child’s suffering.
As Cannon himself concedes, neither the court nor the doctors had any way of knowing if the child was suffering or not. In fact, they were in agreement that the child was in a coma, without any awareness of the external environment (and certainly not subject to a treatment “akin to torture”).
What the court actually argued is that dying was in the child’s “best interests”—even absent pain and suffering. That specific stipulation comes from recent guidelines by the Royal College of Paediatrics (RCP), which essentially argue that state-employed doctors can, by fiat, assert that a child’s quality of life is poor enough that he or she should die—and must die.
Cannon’s thoughts on Alfie’s case are still “tentative,” he tells us, but not tentative enough to take issue—as a libertarian—with a health care system where a government can forcibly prevent loving parents from providing life sustaining treatment for a sick baby at no cost to the taxpayer. If the RCP’s guidelines are a perversion of medical ethics, Cannon’s position has got to be a perversion of libertarianism.
Meanwhile, if you would like a sane perspective on the insanity of the Alfie case, below is my latest video with Dr. Anish Koka, in which we discuss this at length.
I read on a comment feed somewhere that there was a connection between Alfie getting vaccinated and his becoming ill. The comment also stated that there was some provision that if Alfie had lived until 2 or 3 May, that there would have had to have been an investigation into this possible link. The story was that the pharmaceutical company had garnered some influence in the hospital and possibly in the courts to ensure that Alfie never reached that date. The date of removing life support was geared to that end. Do you know if there is any substance to this?
I know nothing of it and I seriously doubt that those allegations can be substantiated. Some conspiracy theories have merit but this one sounds like pure fantasy.
Michael Cannon–has proven he not a libertarian–but rather a Marxist.
I don’t think that’s a correct or helpful characterization.
A libertarian–would not be in favor of an out of control Marxist regime–taking authority from the parents. A libertarian would not be in favor of murder. But a Marxist would be. My characterization is accurate. Libertarianism–has been largely taken over by economic and Cultural Marxists.
Alfie Evans was executed by lethal injection; Alder Hey Hospital has a long horrifying history of organ harvesting from human babies! http://alturl.com/gkpiv
Alfie died 4/28/18 after ~16 month hospitalization for seizures and an unknown “neurodegenerative condition.” All “treatment” options aiming at life were legally taken away from Alfie against his parents’ wishes. His parents aimed at life and fought. The doctors and judges aimed at death with their acts and omissions. Alfie surprised many when he continued to live after the ventilator was taken away. A nasally placed feeding tube was noted in pictures but was it used? Was a more permanent long term tube not placed? Were nutrition and hydration stopped? Was a ketogenic diet known to be effective since the ~1930’s for children with seizures and postulated as potentially effective for other neurodegenerative conditions tried? If so, was the problem for doctors that Alfie may have done better and tolerated feedings thereby continued to live? Because the hospital/doctors/court thought that Alfie was better off dead, ultimately only palliative care “end of life planning” was allowed. Their aim was death.
The doctors, if not the judges, know that by refusing to do a tracheostomy when longer term ventilation is expected, provide nutrition and hydration, slowly wean from the ventilator with assistance as needed, all which aim at life and facilitate safe transport to another hospital, or even to home, that the patient will likely never make it out of the hospital alive. “End of life planning,” will invariably result in “ending a life” on their terms and on their turf. The doctors and judges were aiming, not at the intrinsic good of life on this earth, but at its opposite, death. This is not medicine, not heathcare, but “death-fare”.
Advances in medicine begin with aiming at life first and foremost. We won’t know how Alfie would have done with more time to grow, treatments, and care. Alfie may have surprised the doctors and judges again, not only by living, but by improving and providing hope for others if only he had been given the chance for which his parents so valiantly fought – life. Even if he would not have improved, his life was not without meaning, not without love. His parents, not the doctors and judges, loved him as he was, even if ill, vulnerable, disabled.