Some thoughts on Alfie Evans. Don't read if the case is particularly upsetting to you (and it well might be), or if you're incapable of any sort of reasonable discussion about the topic.
SOME FACTUAL OBSERVATIONS
1. Alfie has a condition which does not seem to be, in the normal order of things, curable.
2. Alfie is apparently in no pain.
3. Alfie was given just a few minutes to live off ventilation. He has now lived several days, largely without additional oxygen (and for one 9-hour period entirely without).
4. During some periods of that period, hospital staff forcibly stopped his parents feeding or hydrating him, on the basis that nourishment was barred by the court order.
5. There is no negative implication to the public purse of him being moved to Italy.
6. His parents have not been found guilty of neglect in any way.
7. The hospital leaked its view that custody would not be returned until the doctors liked the parents more.
8. Alfie's father has announced (in his most recent, final press release) that they will be withdrawing from the public eye to work with the hospital.
1. Alfie has a condition which does not seem to be, in the normal order of things, curable.
2. Alfie is apparently in no pain.
3. Alfie was given just a few minutes to live off ventilation. He has now lived several days, largely without additional oxygen (and for one 9-hour period entirely without).
4. During some periods of that period, hospital staff forcibly stopped his parents feeding or hydrating him, on the basis that nourishment was barred by the court order.
5. There is no negative implication to the public purse of him being moved to Italy.
6. His parents have not been found guilty of neglect in any way.
7. The hospital leaked its view that custody would not be returned until the doctors liked the parents more.
8. Alfie's father has announced (in his most recent, final press release) that they will be withdrawing from the public eye to work with the hospital.
SOME FORMAL OBSERVATIONS
1. It is, prima facie, reasonable for the hospital to withdraw care at the expense of the public purse when it judges it fruitless. That does not equate to the hospital having custody of the child. Rather the opposite: his parents asked for a service, which has now been withdrawn, logically putting his care back in their hands.
1. It is, prima facie, reasonable for the hospital to withdraw care at the expense of the public purse when it judges it fruitless. That does not equate to the hospital having custody of the child. Rather the opposite: his parents asked for a service, which has now been withdrawn, logically putting his care back in their hands.
2. The hospital's argument, that Alfie could not long survive off ventilation (that is, he could survive only a few minutes), has been proven wrong.
3. British courts are not independent of government (though one hopes their judgements are independent of other government officials). The British judiciary is part of the British government. This is the same in all systems I know of. Therefore, Lord Justice Hayden is not some strictly neutral third party; he is an agent of government, who has gone through the same apprenticeships as other government officials. That does not mean his judgements are corrupt - but it does mean that they are not bias-free, accessing eternal truth directly.
4. If Alfie is not in pain, it is exceptionally difficult to demonstrate that keeping him alive is cruel to him. Indeed, it's something of a nonsense to claim that it is so.
5. If Alfie is not suffering, and his parents are not criminally guilty of neglect, then it is hard to see why there is a court-appointed guardian and why a court could possibly be needed to judge Alfie's best interests.
6. If Alfie is as mentally defunct as the hospital argues (and I have no reason to doubt them), then it is hard to see how a court could define his best interests. A court has no natural rights in the case, and can hardly look at Alfie's previous opinions on the matter.
7. Let us say, though, that ventilation IS somehow cruel to Alfie, and that it is in Alfie's best interests to stop it (notwithstanding the above). Surely stopping nourishment is also cruel? Or is there some other definition being used?
8. Perhaps "best interests" here relates to that numinous term "quality of life", in which case here we have the government decided that a disabled boy lacks "quality of life" and so should not only be taken off a ventilator, but forcibly starved.
9. It is not within the realms of imagination that the child of richer parents at a BUPA hospital would be facing the same court order.
9. It is not within the realms of imagination that the child of richer parents at a BUPA hospital would be facing the same court order.
SOME CONCLUSIONS
1. It is patently wicked that Alfie has been forcibly starved as part of this court-ordered euthanasia - because that's what it is. The decision involves not just the removal of care (the doctor's prerogative), not even just the seizure of custody, but actions intended to speed his death. This is evil.
1. It is patently wicked that Alfie has been forcibly starved as part of this court-ordered euthanasia - because that's what it is. The decision involves not just the removal of care (the doctor's prerogative), not even just the seizure of custody, but actions intended to speed his death. This is evil.
2. The seizure of custody, as with Charlie Gard, is dreadful, because there is no reason under the rule of law why it should occur. Courts arbitrarily deciding that those who have committed no crime and are not mentally incapable nonetheless cannot care for their children is an incredible idea; there is no measurable standard, no repeatable written methodology.
3. That the hospital blackmailed Alfie's parents into silence is shameful.
4. The British government is far more for parental "choice" at 23 weeks in the womb than at 23 months out of it.
5. The issue of the incurability of the condition, and the related issue of us needing to deal with mortality better, are not relevant to the formal issue - of parental vs hospital custody - and people must stop equating the two.
6. The hospital has been embarrassingly wrong, and Alfie's medical team - as qualified and hard-working as they are - probably need to take stock of that, given the torture they have put his parents through (Alfie, remember, feels no pain, so is not being tortured at all - his parents are...by the state).
7. Families do not always get it right, of course, but the more decision-making is devolved - or rather, the less it is centralized - the more people are free, within the limits of a coherent and predictable body of law, to make their own mistakes. The family is obviously the most natural unit of decision for the children in it. The state may be able to get some big things right, but when they get things wrong, they get them wrong on an enormous scale. On which note...
8. One segment of my Christian acquaintance has sided vociferously with the state over this and the Gard cases, obsessed as they are with state power rectifying wrongs. No matter that this is the state that oversees the butchery of 180k children in the womb each year. This is strictly an in-house issue, but I do wonder when my fellow left-wing Christians will wake up from their comfortable but fatal delusion that the British state (including the monolith of the NHS) is essentially on the side of good. This is a terribly foolish position for them to hold.
9. This is another instance of Britain being a notably less free country than it was - in the same period of time as two people have been convicted of making offensive jokes (i.e. not a real crime) and someone else was imprisoned for swearing at a speed camera. It's inclinced to make one gloomy. However, I'm still pretty convinced Jesus is alive, so I've got something to cling on to. I hope you do, too.
