I agree with you. The parents are trying to act in the best interests of the family, not only themselves, but their daughter. It appears that they did put some thought behind this.
I will preface this that IN THIS PARTICULAR CASE, I believe the parents made a legitimate decision and should have been allowed to do so. I would not say EVERY case parents ALWAYS should be able to do whatever without anyone revieweing it.
The factors for me are is that these parents have a severely brain damaged young child, and they are thinking about how they are going to be able to care for her as they age and lose functionality themselves. They want to be able to take care of her, she is not going to have a normal life in her condition, she has no prospects of a normal marriage and family life of her own in her condition, they will be the primary caregivers of her as long as they are all alive, and while it is an unorthodox move, I think it fits in with them and their desire to be able to care for her as long as she is alive. They don’t want to dump her on anyone.
IMHO The law and the hospital ethics committee called for a court mandate. I totally agree that the parents are doing their best when others would have let this child die, and most likely the court would have agreed IN THIS CASE. Even if it had not agreed, the rule of thumb is that if you don’t like the law, you work to change it... you don’t put yourself above it. The hospital is at fault here, as far as I can see. Shall we discuss the number of times hospitals practice euthanasia by not treating pneumonia in the elderly, or by double-dosing morphine? Medical workers often see themselves as in the vanguard, and as such often practice beyond the law, and this is not right.