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Why Alfie Cannot Leave
Many around the world have expressed dismay, outrage and surprise that British doctors (and now, two British courts) have ruled that little Alfie Evans must be forcibly prevented from leaving the UK to receive the medical care offered to him (for free) in Italy, or even from being allowed to go home to die.
Instead, he must remain to die in Alder Hey Hospital, under the watchful eyes of those who have rightfully assumed ownership of his person.
Why have the British healthcare system and the British government been so shockingly unyielding in this matter? It’s not because of cost, since free transportation to Italy has been arranged for Alfie, and free healthcare (as well as Italian citizenship) offered when he arrives. Cost is a non-issue.
Is it fundamentally an assertion of the Progressive state’s right (as opposed to the parents’ right) to control the fate of children? That certainly is a substantial part of it. According to CNN, Dominic Wilkinson, professor and director of Medical Ethics at the University of Oxford offered this regarding Alfie: “Sometimes, the sad fact is that parents do not know what is best for their child. They are led by their grief and sadness…to request treatment that will not and cannot help.” Obviously, such non-objectivity must be brushed aside by the appropriate authorities, even when there are no financial reasons for doing so.
But at least arguably, the right of the state to control our children has been adequately established in the public education system, and there is no obvious need to make the case so callously and so publicly in this particular instance.
I believe there must be some other reason the British authorities have (again) asserted themselves in determining that an apparently terminally ill child must die when and where they say he must die, regardless of his parents’ wishes.
As I see it, the British healthcare system did exactly what it had to do. As a matter of bedrock principle, it had no choice but to slam the door on Alfie’s parents. Any truly universal healthcare system has to behave like this.
A universal healthcare system is “universal” in two senses. First, it covers all people. Second (and here’s where the trouble starts) it covers “all” healthcare services.
Fundamentally, this “universality of features” reflects a particular philosophy. The central authority is telling the individual that “everything” will be taken care of for them, from soup to nuts. So no need to worry your pretty little heads.
As always when the central authority assumes all responsibility for providing some aspect of security (in this case, healthcare security), it also assumes all control. I am among those who argue that gaining control of virtually every aspect of an individual’s life is the main reason Progressives have chosen the healthcare system as their main battleground. That is, the chief purpose of running the healthcare system is not to deliver healthcare, but to establish the central authority’s right to control individuals’ behavior.
Allowing individuals to make their own choices — even if they spend their own money, or some third party’s money — fundamentally undermines any universal healthcare system. It suggests that the central authority is actually not supplying all useful healthcare services to individuals (when, by definition, it is), and thus implies that the government may be doing some kind of rationing. When one is dedicated to rationing covertly, such an implication cannot be permitted.
More importantly, when individuals are permitted, by whatever means, to receive “extra” healthcare, that’s a graphic admission to the unwashed masses that there is extra healthcare to be had. It suggests that the healthcare authorities are holding back, that perhaps the system is not as universal as they insist it is.
Any universal healthcare system worth its salt will pull out all the stops to restrict individuals from going outside of the system. The methods they employ will, of course, be conducted only for the best of reasons — to have the fairest healthcare system possible, to have the most ethical healthcare system that can be devised, and to protect misled proletariats from throwing their hard-earned money away on unproven medical services. Whatever the reasons they might offer, their attempt to restrict individual prerogatives will become deadly serious, because doing so is absolutely essential to their real aims.
Alfie’s devastated parents, tearing up before the microphones and cameras, might make the British healthcare system look bad for a few days. The system can take it.
By next week we all will have forgotten Alfie. And the central authorities will have preserved the fiction that they provide universal healthcare — both the fiction that if it’s healthcare, we provide it; and (more importantly) the fiction that if we don’t provide it, it’s not healthcare.
Published in Healthcare
Remember this?
But when “the best” for a child means death, why do you protest? I don’t get how any human person could support this.
A recent Three Martini Lunch framed this beautifully although I paraphrase here –
Q – do you think that we would be hearing about this child being denied treatment – much less food and water – if it were this week’s royal baby?
A – to ask the question is to answer it.
I’ve only seen two episodes of the British show Black Mirror, but I am reminded of the premier episode where a Prime Minister is forced into action (albeit by media and polling if I recall correctly). Will there come a time when someone of high stature – government, royalty, celebrity – is forced to deny treatment/starve their child for the good of the state? It seems more likely today than I would have ever thought.
There is also:
“The government is the one thing, we all belong too” this line has always Creeped me out. We dont belong to government, government belongs to us. It may seem like semantics, but the point of view is completely different.
This is what happens when we’re no longer worth the cost of out medical care? We’ll all meet the same fate as Boxer?
((Boxer the workhorse in Animal Farm, who the pigs sold to the butcher when he got too sick to work ))
Never heard of that statement before. Sometimes when they don’t think the people are listening they let you know what they’re really thinking.
That’s what they’ve been promoting for some time now. Not only in this country but in places like the former East Germany. I once knew a young man who had gotten to a river border and then swam across to get out of East Germany. He got work in the U.S. His parents were left behind, but he told us that once they reached pension age, they would be allowed to emigrate and join him.
That’s how they manage the herd.
It is a matter of under English law, the interests of a child are defined by the courts and not by the parent. Alfie is a child, so he is at the mercy of the courts and what they decide. If Alfie were an adult, the courts would not be able to do to him what they are doing.
Should that law be changed? I think so. And Parliament can.
Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say “controlled” rather than “defined?”
The British have a parallel, completely private pay system to the NHS. So the NHS has no say in lots of the care provided in the UK. And anyone who can afford to stays the hell away from the NHS.
In theory, the whole point of still keeping a limited Monarchy in place in the 21st Century is so that in very very very extreme circumstances the monarch can step in and dictate executive action when the elected government really really really screws the pooch. e.g. To prevent the reoccurrence of a tyrannical “Lord Protector” taking over the government.
Actually exercising this authority is fantastically risky, because if the monarch gets it wrong then Parliament can depose the monarch (or even dissolve the Monarchy entirely) with a simple majority vote, and it’s highly likely that the monarch will get it wrong, which is why such royal prerogative hasn’t been exercised unilaterally in hundreds of years. That’s a good thing, obviously.
Still, it’s entirely arguable that agents of the civil service starving babies to death qualifies as a very very very extreme circumstance.
With due respect, I think a citation is needed. You’re describing something pretty close (but admittedly not identical) to the Terri Schiavo scenario. I’d love to see the actual text of the law that says UK courts cannot rule that a human has ceased to be a “person” and therefore can be disposed of like a sick animal.
As someone of English descent who holds British citizenship and proudly wears an English flag label pin on St. George’s Day, I’m sorta kinda tempted to hit the “flag comment” button on this one.
I’m just kidding, of course, but not really kidding.
The great English public does not vote for this sort of nonsense. The great English public consistently votes against the increasing power of unelected government apparatchiks interfering in their private lives. The great English public gets outvoted by voters in cities like London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, etc (not to mention Glasgow and Edinburgh), where folk have become addicted to government “benevolence”.
It’s the arrogance of the British ruling class, not the arrogance of the English. The British ruling class pretty much hate the English. England is the only British nation to be denied its own national parliament because Westminster’s afraid of devolving power to the only British nation that has a lick of common sense in its bones. Heck, many (most?) of those Oxbridge dandies consider it hate speech to even display the flag of England.
Sorry for the rant. Ye touched a nerve there.
(Addendum: There hasn’t been an English monarch since at least 1603, and arguably not since 1066. The English are thoroughly a minority amongst the British ruling classes. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge just named their third kid Louis, for cryin’ out loud.)
Even if you accept her premise, it’s still not a decent argument for the sort of federal interference in education that people of her ilk lust after. “Children are the responsibility of whole communities.” Cool. That’s why we have independent school boards elected by the people in the community who are closest to the issue.
Whenever people of her ilk say “communities”, it’s a bait-and-switch. They mean the federal government, which is about as far from “community decision-making” as one can get.
“It takes a village.”
“Ok, so let’s give the villages the authority to make these decisions.”
“I said a village. Singular.”
Not at all. The error was mine in calling it “English” Arrogance. Painting with too broad a brush. In my defense, I did attack “aristocratic twits” in my stream of invectives. But nowadays, you don’t need a title to be part of the ruling elite, so I should have made it clearer who the target was. And my brush was too narrow in using “English” instead of “British.” I could have said “human” since hubris like that is universal.
Hmmm. Tell Gough Whitlam that.
What Borepatch said:
On top of that, most people of her ilk hate actual villages. They prefer to live in either a massive metropolis, or a gated suburban community on the outskirts of said metropolis.
Real villages contain villagers, who are typically (in their view) deplorable unwashed unsophisticated redneck Trump voters who cling to their guns and Bibles. Obviously, one can’t let people like that have any decision-making authority…
It is disappointing that the State will always find loyal allies in places where, by rights, they should not be.
It is not only the archbishop of Liverpool who is a man without a chest. As I said on another post on this topic:
The icing on the cake as you put it, is a direct result of the spineless lack of action from the Archbishop of Liverpool, Malcolm McMahon who praised the work of Alder Hey Hospital. Coupled with the Pontius Pilate like statement from the Catholic bishops of the UK and Wales, these men without chests have disgraced themselves. Is it any wonder, that with pathetic leadership and lack of Christian fortitude like this, that the faith has almost died in the UK. Where are the men of Britain? Poor Tom Evans has been beaten down in this battle and without any backing from the leaders of his Church, has been forced to act like a hostage in order to save his son.
A minor correction, he does have backing from the leader of his Church:
But I agree it’s a shame he had to go all the way to Rome to find such support.
What if Alfie is taken to Italy and is cured. The NHS would look both heartless and foolish. They would be ridiculed. From their perspective, it is better to make sure that Alfie does not survive.
Yes indeed, we can praise and be proud of our Holy Father for his support for Alfie.
But Alfie no longer needs our prayers – he died early this morning.
Related article written by @titustechera for the Federalist. I can’t say I am personally in complete agreement with all his points, but his article is definitely worth a read; and I hope you do.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/04/26/alfie-evans-state-sanctioned-murder-call-action-barbarity/
If the Pope feels strongly about this, he can send a lot stronger message than a tweet by replacing the Archbishop and select bishops very publicly. Maybe show up for the investiture with a homily on the value of the least among us.
This open letter to the UK bishops from Jean Pierre Casey, the nephew of a renowned German Catholic philosopher and fierce opponent of Hitler, Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889-1977) is marvelous. I wonder if those cowards will take it to heart. I found these two paragraphs especially good:
I think you make a very convincing argument for the motivation of the NHS. It is a horrible commentary on their ethics, but your reasoning fits the facts and sadly makes a great deal of sense.
Reading linked articles, it looks like there is a serious moral problem in the UK Roman Catholic leadership. We will see what the current pope really believes and values by his response. The Vatican lawyers could initiate the warranted wholesale or selective disciplinary action by just cutting and pasting the text of the faithful layman’ open letter into official letterhead.