Goldberg nails this. While he disagrees with the parent’s direction for treatment, he supports their decision because they are the parents. Here’s an extract:
If I were counseling them [the parents], I would suggest it’s time [to let him go]. But if I were their doctor or one of the judges presiding over the case, I would let them take their baby for treatment.
Some of my friends on the right, for understandable and laudable reasons, want to make this case all about the right to life, euthanasia and various appeals to hope or faith.I see it far more as a matter of due process. In every liberal democratic country dedicated to the rule of law, the state has to jump through hoops to deny citizens their rights. Even when the state knows a criminal is guilty, it still must go through the motions and prove its case.
Charlie’s parents aren’t criminals, they’re distraught parents. And parents have rights. They aren’t absolute rights. Parents can’t kill their children or let them die through inaction.
But the state can.
Societies depend on the principle that parents are their children’s best guardians. It’s appalling for the state — particularly one that runs the health care system — to claim that it, not the loving parents, have the final say.
And yet, that’s exactly what Socialized Medicine gives us: state control and state decisions.
#Obamacare #SocializedMedicine #DeathPanels