The Gard and Evans cases were fucking hilarious.Also, OT, in regards to Alfie Evans and Charlie Gard, as mentioned upthread:https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/alder-hey-v-evans.pdf Here is a link to the Judge's findings for the Alfie Evans case, I'm too stupid to figure out how to do a proper link.
Alright, so I saw on that Tard Baby General thread that apparently both these cases have been majorly misrepresentated in the US, mainly by the "pro-life" crowd who have somehow got involved. If things actually happened the way those people were saying then I'd totally be against it all as well.
I know a lot about Alfie Evans and less about Charlie Gard, but it seems like people are conflating the two so whatever. Alfie Evans had some crazy degenerative brain disorder, one that hadn't yet been seen in anybody else. Every time they scanned his head it had worsened. Eventually he had less brain than we can estimate the Hartleys had/have. Because they hadn't seen this condition before, his doctors and specialists and experts and shit couldn't say for sure whether he could interpret pain.
When the hospital wanted to withdraw futile treatment and focus on palliative care, the parents objected, which is fine, it's their kid, and they're still kids themselves, and they're not doctors, they can see their little boy right in front of them so how can he be gone, can't blame them for wanting to fight the advice of the doctors so they went to court. In the UK, children have their own rights. In the US, kids are essentially "property" of their parents, which a lot of people seem okay with and I guess due to cultural differences I find sort of messed up but I won't spend time on that. Kids have their own rights, and when something the parents want conflict with what is objectively best for the kid, then the courts step in to decide what should happen. The NHS had nothing to do with this. The government had absolutely nothing to do with this. The cost of taking care of Alfie had nothing to do with this. It was all purely to stop keeping his body alive while what little brain he had left had constant seizures.
Italy offered him a passport, which was nice of them. Italy offered to maintain palliative care for him, which again was very nice, but palliative care was what he was receiving in England. There was no experimental treatment in Italy. Is that something the American papers said? I saw that stated a few places closer to the time. But yeah, all Italy was going to do was keep him comfortable while he died. Which is what Alder Hey wanted to do, and was why they were in court in the first place.
The court shut down the transfer to Italy just in case Alfie could feel pain. They weren't sure if he could feel pain, because he couldn't feel anything else, but just in case he could, they wanted to prevent anything more strenuous. Letting him be airlifted and transferred to Italy when he was having constant seizures would have been seriously negligent, IMO, but my opinion doesn't matter. The courts' did, and they decided it was, so he didn't go.
It was sad, yes, but the kid was farther gone than the potatoes. The only reason it really got so much international attention was because of the US pro-birthers hyping it so much, and the only reason it got so much domestic attention was probably because of the absolutely mental "Alfie's Army" scumbags who congregated outside the hospital and spent their days spitting on anyone walking in or out, doxxing the medical staff and pulling the fire alarms. At a children's hospital, for fuck's sake. Because if Alfie were sentient, he'd totally appreciate those people aligned themselves with him.
Aaand now Charlie Gard. I don't remember as much about him because I don't think I cared that much at the time, not a nice person, blah blah, but his situation was kind of different. He was also severely fucked and definitely on the road to ruin etc but his parents weren't willing to let him go, and a doctor in the US offered them this experimental treatment, and they wanted to take him but the courts said no because it would have been cruel to move him, and he died, and then it turned out that the doctor who offered the experimental treatment hadn't even bothered to look at Charlie's most recent brain scans and when he did he realised that whatever the treatment had been, it wouldn't have worked anyway because Charlie's condition had deteriorated too far by then. So in that case I think it was the US doctor's fault rather than purely the parents' fault. I really can't remember much of it though.
So yeah sorry for the huge mostly-irrelevant post but a few people mentioned Alfie Evans (though had him and Charlie Gard conflated I think) so I thought I'd take advantage of my sperg-level following of the former at least and throw in some stuff
- American parents insist on keeping potato children alive against medical advice: Kiwis mock them mercilessly
- British parents insist on keeping potato children alive against medical advice: Kiwis fawn over them and scream about the government is murdering the poor kids
