[Alberta's Child]

I might be in the minority here, but I'm not so sure the judge made an incorrect decision here. This isn't just a function of government-run health care. It's the reality we face when any third party is involved in paying someone's medical bills in an industry where modern advances have brought about so many incredible, but very expensive, forms of treatment for ailments that used to be routinely considered fatal.

Would this family make the same decisions about their child's medical care if they were paying the medical bills themselves?

[surroundedbyblue]

“
Would this family make the same decisions about their child’s medical care if they were paying the medical bills themselves?”

Um, you’re joking, right? What parent wouldn’t move mountains to save their child?

Your thoughts are sick. Your utilitarian view of human life is warped & not in-line with conservative values.

[PhatHead]

Would this family make the same decisions about their child's medical care if they were paying the medical bills themselves?

I speak as the father of a child who died of cancer following five years of treatments in multiple hospitals. I can assure you that the cost would be least concern of his parents, regardless of who is paying. I often tire of Democrat anecdotes about the poor folks who lost their house because of medical bills. To us, it always seemed something of a no-brainer that you are better off broke than dead. But a state-run medical-legal regime that "Weigh(s) up the benefits and burdens of keeping the boy alive" will never, ever reach that same conclusion. To the government, it's always about dollars and cents.

[CSM]

“Would this family make the same decisions about their child’s medical care if they were paying the medical bills themselves?”

Are they even allowed to do this on their own at their own expense?

[Graybeard58]

Would this family make the same decisions about their child's medical care if they were paying the medical bills themselves?

Tough question, one that occurred to me as well.

Under the same circumstances, I'd want my child to live too and when I had spent all my resources, I'd still want him to live, though the decision to keep trying, would no longer be mine to make.

[EDINVA]

My question relates to the word and concept of “intervention.” What has been done to date has been an ‘intervention,’ i.e., using technology to thwart what would have been the child’s natural death. That technology has apparently not worked. So how is terminating use of that failed technology considered “ordering [the child’s] death?”

As parents, yes, we would move heaven and earth to save our child’s life. Been there and done that. But when use of the best technology available is not working, and there is little to no hope of its ever working, I don’t think cessation of its use is “ordering the patient’s death.” It’s ceasing a futile effort to forestall the patient’s natural death.