Have included an article, “Children’s “Rights” That End the Lives of
Children”, that suggests some thoughts one may want to consider. I do find
it interesting that this article has been posted on Sept. 11. The same unforgettable day of Sept. 11, 2001. I know I
will take a moment to remember those that lost members of that day of 911. I
sincerely hope everyone will take just a moment. As a Family advocate, I feel:
Our Families are the most valuable resources we have in our Nation, if not the
World.
Is the date of this article a coincidence?
Perhaps. But my family’s day of loss occurred on Sept. 11, 2010, when we lost our home to a fire. We refer to it as
our “Little 911”
Yes, I am against those children
that have been intentionally beaten, maimed, etc. by their parents and/or their
care givers. However, this article is in reference those children that have an
alleged terminal illness.
Here are some questions that
the author of this writing posed:
- Why should a doctor—whose duty is to serve
the family—have the final decision as to when a child should die?
- And given that doctors are frequently
wrong, why shouldn’t parents have the right to fight for their child’s life to
the very end?
- Are we now ready, as some advocate, to
eliminate the parents’ voice from insisting that their child receive treatment
when it’s available?
So do read this article, and
perhaps, it can share insight the balance that is vitally needed within Our
Families.
May you find Strength in Your Higher Power,
Granpa Chuck
Just an ol’ guy, who has shared many family experiences
Children’s “Rights” That End the Lives of Children
Benjamin Bull
is an attorney with the Alliance
Defending Freedom.
Article Date: Sept. 11, 2012
There is a
growing so-called “children’s rights” movement that is attempting to hijack
parental rights, and, as a result, prematurely end the life of ill children.
A recent article
in the Journal of Medical Ethics outlines the “suffering” and “torture”
supposedly inflicted by parents who insist on continued medical treatment for
their sick children. The authors of the review, Dr. Joe Brierley and Dr. Andy
Petros, two pediatricians from Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in
London, argue that subjecting children to treatment—when, in their opinion, a
child is terminally ill—is “inhumane.”
In fact, they argue that continuing to medically treat a child when doctors
have given up hope could constitute a breach of Article 3 of the European
Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits “torture.”
The two doctors
reviewed 203 cases at the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care unit, where
parents were advised that life support systems should be turned off for their
children because recovery, in the view of the hospital staff, was unlikely.
Seventy percent of deaths at the unit resulted from withdrawing medical care.
As the authors
explain, the religious beliefs of parents “can lead to children being
potentially subjected to burdensome care in expectation of ‘miraculous
intervention.’” And since the children being cared for are usually “too young
to subscribe to the religious beliefs by their parents,” doctors should not be
beholden to the parents’ faith in determining care.
In sum, as Executive Director of the National Secular Society Keith Porteous
Wood put it, “The experience and advice of doctors must not be held ransom to
[parents’] religious beliefs, however strongly held.” In other words, the
doctor should substitute for the parent in determining treatment and care of
the child. The fact that this argument arises in the context of a
government-run healthcare system makes it all the more troubling.
And it raises
several profound questions:
·
Why
should a doctor—whose duty is to serve the family—have the final
decision as to when a child should die?
It’s been over a decade now,
but as a father to my youngest son, I had to make this decision. My son had
serious brain damage after being severly injured when he was hit on his bicycle
by a vehicle. Dr’s said that he was brain dead and say no hope of recovery. It
was a hard decision but we did decide to end his life journey.
·
In light of the
fallibility of the medical profession, the very notion that continuing to treat
a child after a doctor has given up hope is somehow “torture” or
“inhumane” seems absurd. Doctors are sometimes wrong. And parents, by the very
nature of their role, have been entrusted with protecting and caring for their
children. Removing that right from the parents and vesting it with a non-family
member is itself barbaric.
Yet this entire
argument is useful in highlighting the need to safeguard parental rights. As
Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Piero Tozzi recently testified
before Congress on restoring parental rights in the U.S. Constitution, “Respect
for parental rights is integral to the well-being of the family and the
well-being of children.”
Tozzi explained
that the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has paradoxically
claimed to fight on behalf of children “by acting against parents and family,
advocating policies which, if implemented, would undermine the interests of
children.” The child, Tozzi points out, exists in a “familial context” and is
“dependent on others for securing his or her interests.”
Apparently using
the Convention on the Rights of the Child as cover, so-called “children’s
rights” activists want virtually all decisions affecting the child to be made
by the child and not the parents. Their apparent goal is to restructure
familiar relationships by fundamentally reducing the role of parents and
increasing the role of the government in the guise of advocating for the child.
But parents exist to secure a child’s interests. Ordinarily, this would
be common sense, but we live in a strange, new world—one in which the rare
exceptions of parental abuse become the norm by which all parents are measured.
Some in the U.S.
have suggested a constitutional Parental Rights Amendment that would safeguard
those rights and, at the same time, ensure the well-being of children. Parents
would not be subject to the tyranny of activists or a government bent on
usurping the natural order of the family. A constitutional amendment that
prohibits activists and doctors from stripping parents of their primary duty to
give children the best possible chance for survival is understandable given the
creeping Orwellian movement to reduce the role of parents in caring for their
own children.
And
when the medical establishment accuses parents of “torture” for insisting that
their child continue to receive the best care available, it’s a solution whose
time may have arrived.
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