Life support - where can the line be drawn?

[Lace Neil Singer]

{Warning for triggering if you click links}

Charlie Gard
Alfie Evans
Isaiah Haastrup

It's natural for parents to want to do everything possible to save their child's life, but is this really the best route to take? In all of these cases, specialists have stated that the child has irreparable brain damage and no quality of life. They will never get better but instead would face a half life relying on machines to breathe for them, feed them and sedate them.

All those people on Facebook and Twitter bellowing their support, either on those sites or outside the hospitals and courthouses, will they be prepared to offer their time and money to care for these children once they are no longer cute babies, but teenagers? Sometimes, a battle is not worth fighting. It's not in the child's best interest to be forced to carry on so that the parents don't have to lose them. Maybe it would be the kindest decision, not the easiest, to just let them go, have a funeral and properly mourn them.

[Greenday]

Maybe because I'm not the most emotional person I feel this way, but it's not the right thing to do to keep them alive. I get not wanting to lose your child but is them suffering so much better? Not a chance. It's selfish to hold on and let them suffer.

[s_stabeler]

It's...complicated, and I generally would prefer the family's wishes be respected. However, I freely admit that there comes a point where the family really need to let go.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Alfie Evans brain scans

This link shows that this child's brain is basically soup. The loss of brain matter is a terrible thing as it can never be regenerated. Even if his parents do win the fight, what sort of existence, not life, can the poor kid hope to have?

Reminded of the Terri Schiavo case here. It's natural for parents to not want to let their child go, but what's best for the child is to end their artificial existence now, and their suffering.

[telecom_goddess]

I think it's so unfair that when animals suffer everyone is all for putting them down, because quality of life is terrible, and they want to end suffering. But when it comes to humans they take the opposite tack. Why is it so necessary to prolong life on machines? If there is no hope, and the brain is basically dead, why keep it going? Why let humans suffer?