You have my sympathy, and I absolutely understand your point about making decisions without any consideration for costs in the long run. But there is always going to be a limit to how far any medical treatment can go in terms of saving a person’s life. This is why, for example, there isn’t a single religious group on the planet whose moral theology includes an absolute mandate that a person must be kept on a mechanical life support system indefinitely, in the name of preserving human life.
Of course, but you asked whether the parents might feel differently if they were paying the bill themselves. In my opinion they would not.
Your question had nothing to do with the “moral theology” of it, and neither does the story. Governments make these decisions based solely on dollars and cents, and that’s what happened here.
The further medical decisions move from the patients (say, to the IPAB,) the less likely they will be made with any moral considerations.
I suspect we agree on that.