This months Janet Parshall show looked at the Charlie Gard issue, the DUP and Pride marches….all contemporary issues – you can listen to it by clicking the following link..
https://www.moodyradio.org/radioplayer.aspx?episode=150660&hour=1
Re the Charlie Gard issue it is a complex one which is not helped by simplistic solutions. On the one hand there are those who simply argue that the doctors/hospital always know best, on the other there are those who argue that the parents are always right. The fact is that sometimes parents are not the best (when for example they are abusive, or ignorant) and sometimes hospitals are not the best (when they are driven by ideology and money). This is one of those issues in which I find myself in sympathy with both parties…have a listen to the first part of the podcast
God moves in mysterious ways.
The ethical issue with Charlie Gard is almost isomorphic with that of so-called Reparative Therapy, also in the news this week.
In both cases, there is an experimental therapy that hasn’t been proven to work yet, and which can harm patients upon whom it doesn’t work, for no benefit. There is a party who thinks there is nothing worthwhile to lose by trying it, and another party who thinks that we must not allow individuals to make their own decisions about controversial therapies that might not work, when they are so desperate that they feel anything is better than nothing.
Those who want to block progress in finding cures, argue that the fate of the patient and all similar future patients (remaining gay, or dying, as the case may be) isn’t all that bad,
Over Reparative Therapy, the C of E sided with the centrist, collectivist control freaks, and to hell with subsidiarity, or individual, personal choice.
Doctor knows best. Charlie must die. Gays are doomed to remain gay. Accept it. That (for consistency) has to be the C of E position, on Charlie Gard.
Re the Charlie Gard case I find it deeply ironic that Janet Parshall so easily passes judgement on GOSH as having ‘hubris’ and being ‘arrogant’ when she has not heard their side of the story in full. It is not possible that she has heard it as they are not in a position to give it beyond what is published in the court judgements that have been given so far (if she has even gone so far as to have read those, if she has that wasn’t made clear in the podcast, certainly she had not taken the trouble to find out how the system works and who has the final say, it is NOT the hospital as she seems to think). Certainly she cannot know what GOSH’s thinking is regarding where Charlie might die when the time comes and why/why not as the hospital is not in a position to say anything about that. One of the saddest aspects of this case is the degree to which the relationship between Charlie’s family and the medical team appears to have broken down. As I’m sure you are aware, in general medical care of a sick child is a partnership. The health professionals bring their expertise and plan and implement a care regimen with the consent and participation of the child (as appropriate depending on age etc) and the parents. In an ideal world, and the real world for the most part, everyone has the best interests of the child at heart. Where there are differences of opinion usually it is possible to come up with a way forward that parents and team can get on board with. If a complete impasse is reached, as in this case, neither the parents nor the medical team have an absolute right to over ride the other and I believe that is right and proper. It isn’t right to force a health professional to implement a treatment he or she believes to be unethical and it isn’t right to carry out a treatment, or fail to, on a child without parental consent. If you end up in a place where it is either one of those that has to happen then that is where the court comes in to make a judgement as to what is in the best interests of the child, it is a last resort. I have the greatest of sympathy for everyone involved. I have been both sides of the desk as it were, having been a patient (though not a patient’s parent which is probably harder in many ways) quite a lot and also having worked as a health professional.
I don’t blame you for this David, but I feel I need to respond here. I tuned in to the Janet Parshal link to hear some discussion about Charlie Gard, but I almost lost my lunch when she started talking about Israel/Palestine and couldn’t listen any further from that report. I knew dispensationalists existed, but I never heard a “news” report like that. Netanyahu reading from Genesis? Wow. He plays the religious card and (some) people fall into his hands like children. Wake up people and read the news! And please know if you listened to that podcast that what propaganda Janet Parshal and the like feed you is not what all Christians believe!
Good job you don’t blame me…I didn’t even hear it….one day I would love to discuss Israel and Palestine on her show….it might be interesting!
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