Alfie’s brain was a mass of tissue capable only of experiencing pain and seizures. The hospital fought to end his life not bc they didn’t want him treated elsewhere - it would have been cheaper for the hospital if had gone to die in Italy - but bc the kids life was constant torture.
If I ever end up in such a condition I hope a doctor would intervene the same way if a relative insisted on keeping me alive to experience only paid.
So you’re saying that the child was owned by the government and not the parents?
(1) What you describe as his condition was not without controversy. There were pediatric specialists who gave him a different, better prognosis.
(2)Although novel or experimental treatment with low chances of success is not a moral obligation, it IS a moral option. The parents wanted to "go the extra mile" and see if other treatments might help their little boy. It wasnt even a funding issue: they had volunteer specialists and private funders: their own non-state options. The NHS was absolutely out of line to block all of the parents' choices.
(3) Even a severely disabled and dying person has a right to nutrition and hydration. If you cut these off, the person does not die of his underlying condition, but of starvation/dehydration. This is intentional killing. It is immoral for deliberately starve a medically dependent child to death.
Being willing to accept a state agency as the absolute arbiter of life and death, cutting other doctors and even the patient's parents out of the picture: this is totalitarian. I am frankly surprised that there would be anybody at Free Republic who would surrender that kind of unchallengeable power to the state.