Alfie Evans, the British toddler at the center of a legal battle passed away in the night. My heart grieves after following Alfie’s story for months. In case you’ve never heard of Alfie Evans, here’s a little recap. Alfie was born May 9, 2016. When he was seven-months-old he was taken to the hospital with a fever and cough. While in the hospital he began having seizures and the rest of the story goes downhill from there.
Alfie was eventually put on life support and somewhere in there a committee at the hospital in Liverpool, England decided that Alfie’s situation “was unkind and inhumane” and it was time to let Alfie die. The doctors had not been able to determine what exactly Alfie had but thought he had a degenerative brain disease. Over the course of time Alfie’s case was turned over to a high court justice who decided that it was time to take Alfie off life support because “it would not be in Alfie’s best interests to continue life support” and it was then that a judge had decided he knew what was best for Alfie.
Photo: Kate James (Alfie’s mom)
At the root of Alfie’s story is the battle for who makes the decision whether a person lives or dies and who determines if they have value. Let that sink in.
In Alfie’s case the hospital’s committee decided his life no longer had value and it was time for him to die and then the justice backed up the committee. His parents disagreed and wanted to take him to Italy for treatment. The hospital refused to let him leave. The hospital committee said he was in a partial vegetative state. His parents said he would respond to them! Either way, if a person is in a partial vegetative state and his parents want to attempt treatment elsewhere, what problem would that be to the hospital? What right did they have to say he couldn’t leave?
Alfie’s family fought all the way through the courts. Each court ruled with the committee!! The Supreme Court in England threw the case out and said it wasn’t worth hearing – meaning Alfie had no value to them. Friends! Do you realize that this is socialized healthcare at it’s finest?? Socialized health care means a committee decides a person’s value! A committee!! A committee!! The committee wouldn’t allow Alfie to leave the hospital instead that same committee worked to have his parent’s rights severed! And friends, don’t think it can’t happen to you – this is socialized health care.
Alfie’s Parents – Image: Jason Roberts
The battle for Alfie’s right to life and who would make the decision about his care was real!! His parents went back to the Supreme Court and asked them a second time if they would please hear their son’s case. They refused a second time. His dad then appealed to the European court of human rights in Strasburg, Germany to allow Alfie to be moved to Rome for treatment. The European court of human rights in Strasburg refused.
Alfie’s dad flew 10 days ago to Italy to meet with the pope. In an incredible move Italy granted Alfie immediate citizenship in an effort to allow him to come to Italy for treatment. The Italian ministry of foreign affairs said: “The Italian government hopes that in this way, being an Italian citizen will enable the immediate transfer of the child to Italy.”
When Italy granted Alfie citizenship, the hospital removed life support. It had long been an ego-thing for a committee – the committee would win at any cost and Alfie would die. A committee believed they knew better then Alfie’s parents. Off life support Alfie continued to breathe on his own!! (That must have really ticked off the committee!! How dare Alfie breathe on his own!)
Photograph: ACTION4ALFIE/AFP/Getty Images
This is a travesty and this is socialized healthcare friends!! Alfie’s life had boiled down to only intellectual value and the committee had decided that Alfie had none. The blood of Alfie Evans is on the hands of every person who ruled against his parents, every person who decided he no longer had value and every person who blocked the efforts of his parents to take him to Italy.
Alfie’s parents were denied the privilege of caring for their son in the best way they deemed. The courts ruled against them every single time because a committee (a committee!!) decided they knew best what Alfie’s life was worth – nothing!! It held no value at all to any of them.
Photo: Peter Byrne/PA
Alfie Evans – your life had infinite value as you were created in the image of our mighty God. We know you are now with little baby Joy from the Gem Foundation (and all the other little ones) and you are safe in the arms of Jesus.
Alfie’s parents – you fought valiantly for your Alfie!! You should have had the right to decide on his healthcare. You should have had the right to leave the hospital with him. You should have had the right to take him to Italy. You are true heroes! Italy – thank you for fighting for Alfie too. We pray for God’s peace, comfort and strength for Alfie’s parents.
Oh no, I do love you and your family, but this is NOT the true story.
The so-called “socialized health-care” gave Alfie and his very poor parents months and months and months of the best-possible newborn-intensive-unit care you can get in the world. The cared very good for Alfie; his father acknowledged this at last.
Nobody made himself a judge over life and death.
In the USA, who would pay for such a good care for very poor parents and their baby? There is really no “socialized health-care”, meaning that everyone, especially the poorest people, can get help in every circumstance. When I fall from my bike a few yers ago (without the least possible) health-care insurance, I got ALL the examinations and the best-possible help (including new front teeth which I lost when falling). Our children – although we were very, very poor parents like Alfie’s parents – got all you can wish for since my pregnancies, when I was very sick, and when I had all my births as emergency cesarean sections, from the best doctors. We could never afford that as parents aged 19 until 27. This is our “socialized health-care” system in Germany. This principle is following the biblical principles of helping and caring for each other, especially for the other people in need.
Alfie’s poor parents were instrumentalized from groups who insulted, threatened, bellowed at all of the medical personnel who cared so diligently for Alfie all this months long. “Do not judge”, says the bible. And “You shall not give false testimony”. I know, people as Mike Huckabee and others are telling lies about this, but as Christians we should be really truthful. And this populist-driven story is NOT the truth – at all. This are very vile words: “The blood of Alfie Evans is on the hands of every person who ruled against his parents, every person who decided he no longer had value and every person who blocked the efforts of his parents to take him to Italy.” NOBODY decided he no longer had value. Why do you retell the lies? I don’t get it. I am very disappointed and so sad.
An addition – for your more complex information, if you are willing to hear the truth:
All the specialists diagnosed that Alfie would have increased numbers of seizures from stress of the trip and would even be dying during the trip. The Italian (!) doctors said that, too. The only thing the Italian hospital would do would be to cut in little Alfie’s abdomen and throat to insert again and again feeding tubes and breathing tubes. They would do the same as the English hospital did for such a long time. He would be left on machines in Italy having countless seizures – uncontrollable seizures – every day until his forever changed brain left completely and his organs failed. He wasn’t killed, he was cared for until his natural death.
I so much feel with his parents. But life and death are in the caring hands from our father in heaven. And doctors can only do so much. They cannot conquer the death.
A system of rationed government-controlled health care denied Alfie live-preserving treatment. Taking away the ability of parents to have final say over their children’s health, and even their lives, is not Biblical. Faceless bureaucrats are making the rules of ultimately who lives and who dies based on algorithms and money. They are getting rid of the sick, elderly and disabled so they can pay for those who are healthy enough to survive and, according to their own definitions, be more viable to humanity.
I agree with SiriusXM host Joel Pollak who said, “Many of the early experiments with state-sanctioned murder under the Nazi regime were not in fact of Jewish people but were eugenicist policies being carried out to rid the population of people that the Nazi ideology suggests should not be allowed to survive and reproduce. … Once you start making those decisions it’s a very slippery slope to just horrible, unbelievable, terrible things. That’s why we have to take this so seriously.”
Here are just a few more cases of socialized medicine making life and death decisions on behalf of the “greater good” – http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/04/27/alfie-isaiah-charlie-children-mandated-die-parents-wishes/
Thank you Stacie. Here’s a BBC article that was just published about it. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-44082157 Again it states that there was a legal battle and the parents LOST. Interesting that people lined the streets for a little boy for a little boy “that brought the world together.” My guess is that many feel like you and I do Stacie – that parents rights must never be taken away when it comes to ending a child’s life. Right after Alfie passed away there were 2 cases of kids in persistent vegetative states who woke up…one’s parents had signed the papers for them to be an organ donor. Both made international news and definitely confirm that GOD Is the only one who should “pull the plug”.
You may well be right, and I am sorry if I upset you by my comment. It is an extremely difficult situation, and I am hopeful/am willing to give the benefit of the doubt that all parties involved were genuinely trying to do what was best for this little boy.
Thank you Pantherle for your response.
Linny is post really about what is best for a little boy or is it about pushing a political agenda?
I don’t know much about the politics of your healthcare in America, but I do know a lot about working as a doctor in the NHS in England, and you have said some very hurtful things about us in this post.
No one has said that this little boy does not have value. He does have infinite value. The price of Jesus own life, bled for him. He is a beloved child of God. However, when the body he is living in is broken, and the only way to keep that body going is to continue to have painful procedures, including multiple tubes inserted in him and painful blood tests, with no human hope of recovery, how can you say that it would be better for him to suffer in this way, when instead he can be dancing with Jesus in heaven?
This is NOT about ego. I find that a very hurtful comment. How can you possibly know the motives of human hearts? Please reconsider the judgements you have made over these committees. Imagine how heart-wrenchingly difficult a job that must be?
Linny, is prolonging life for the sake of prolonging life really something we should value as Christians? When we know what awaits us on the other side? Do not fear death, friend. It will come to us all and I personally am looking forward to meeting my saviour face to face. Yes life has immense value, but dying a good death does too. Giving someone dignity in their last moments. If I had an illness/accident that left me incapacitated and in the sad condition of poor little Alfie, I personally would want to be allowed to meet my maker. To leave the pain of this world and to go where there are no more tears and no more pain. That is not wrong, Linny. That is not playing God. It is far more unnatural for us to intervene with tubes etc. than to allow God in his grace to decide a persons fate. Surely if anything it is playing God the amount we intervene?
And God was generous enough to allow his parents a blessed week with him at home, without the tubes and the wires. Linny I find it incredibly hurtful that you think that we as medical professionals would be “ticked” that Alfie “dared to breath on his own”. Think about what you are saying there, really think about it. The judgement you have passed over us, that we would rather a little boy not be able to have these last few days of peace with his family.
I know this lands with you in a very different place than it lands with me, and I do appreciate that. Of course where there is hope, we should certainly provide treatment. But sadly here there was no hope. I know the media likes to portray that there was, but honestly, think about the motive behind these headlines – they are in the business of selling newspapers, not the truth.
I hope this comment meets you with love. I certainly do not mean to start a fight, but I just want to highlight that firstly there are always two sides to every story and secondly that this has been an incredible hurtful and unloving post. I think having public platform like this (especially one that normally promotes love) that you have a responsibility to your readers that the message you are giving them is based on the truth, rather than hate. I realise you are as human as the next person, but please think about who you are attacking. Jesus died for us too.
Thank you for your time and your other more encouraging posts.
Alex
God is The Healer. And, often He heals through the gift of medical intervention. I believe that the parents should have been able to take their son to another country to seek medical care. That is their son. No one on this earth loved him more. We need to pray that the rights and wishes of parents NOT be taken from them by government. Alfie is dancing with Jesus. How I wish that his parents could have had a chance to seek health for their boy. Let’s pray for them. Let us not be pulled apart by our personal thoughts and opinions. We, as humans, can never understand the “why’s”. One day we will! I look forward to that day.
Much Love, Linny!