Which is why the American right has been so focused on the Alfie Evans story. They believe progressives have been eroding parental rights for years — denying parents the right to opt their children out of some sex-ed courses, or to decide that some books aren’t age appropriate for their own children, for example. They also see the inevitable logic of socialized medicine leads to cases like Alfie’s, and Charlie Gard’s and Ashya King — whose family fled the U.K. and became criminals to get his son experimental treatment in the Czech Republic.
Ashya is still alive today, but only because he escaped the “health care” system of Great Britain.I've posted a lot recently about Alfie Evans, and a year ago about Charlie Gard - both intentionally killed by Britain's National Health Service. But I'd totally missed the story of Ashya King. A quick Wikiwander led me to his story.
In short, the kid had brain cancer, the NHS didn't provide Proton Therapy, hospitals on the Continent did, and his parents took him over on a ferry. The Wikipedia article writes about what happened next:
On 28 August 2014, an international manhunt for King and his parents commenced.[4] On 30 August, King and his parents were found in Velez Malaga, Spain. King's parents were arrested and their son was sent to a local hospital for urgent treatment.[5] They were held in prison for more than 24 hours and released when the request to extradite them to the United Kingdom was withdrawn.Get that: his parents were imprisoned because they sought better health care for their child. They were imprisoned. I don't see how anyone can describe Britain as a free country.
Yesterday's post about the 1989 removal of the border fence between Hungary and Austria is a parable on the futility of trying to keep your population confined against their will. But we see Britain doing this repeatedly. The difference between Alfie and Ashya was that Ashya's parents didn't ask a Court, they just headed for a seaport and a ferryboat. At that point the fury of the NHS was mitigated by cooler heads in the Foreign Ministry who hesitated to cause an international incident over this.
To this day, Ashya is cancer free, because his parents are jail birds.
It's long been a question as to why Leftist Institutions always devour those whom they are nominally charged with helping, but we see this in full flower in Britain's NHS today.
It's long been a question as to why Leftist Institutions always devour those whom they are nominally charged with helping,
ReplyDeleteI believe it was one of your commenters on the Alfie Evans story who said the reason the NHS kills off children when there's no financial incentive (as was the case with Alfie or Charlie Gard) is because if they let the child go to another country and the child is cured, they lose their claim to omniscience. They show that they're not as competent as they claim and their doctors aren't the world's experts.
They're afraid people will demand better treatment. If all one needs is extremely routine care, anyone can provide it. If one needs the world's best care, they need to go elsewhere.
So in place of omniscience, they claim omnipotence and just kill off anyone who might threaten them.
Can't have anyone upset the apple cart and actually get care. They might tell others... sigh
ReplyDeleteSomething's most definitely rotten in the state of England and it'll only get worse as the cash runs out and they double down in a frenzy of denial and tyrannous self-interest.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's curious to note how the left consistently hates life.