Parents Who Believe in Miracles Torture Dying Children, Doctors Warn
Parents who trust in divine intervention, even after doctors say there is no hope of survival, are putting their children through aggressive but futile treatments, they said.
In an article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics they warned that families with deeply held hopes for a “miraculous” recovery were increasingly being allowed to “stonewall” medical opinion.
The doctors, from Great Ormond Street Hospital, called for an overhaul of the legal system to reduce the weight given to parents’ religious beliefs in such cases.
“While it is vital to support families in such difficult times, we are increasingly concerned that deeply held belief in religion can lead to children being potentially subjected to burdensome care in expectation of ‘miraculous’ intervention,” the authors warned. “In many cases, the children about whom the decisions are being made are too young to subscribe to the religious beliefs held by their parents, yet we continue to respect the parents’ beliefs.”
Instead they want the process of doctors seeking court permission to withdraw treatment to be sped up and for the law to make clear that parents’ beliefs should not be a “determining factor” in such decisions.
The fact that there is even others arguing that it is ok to intentionally cause children pain instead of allowing them to pass peacefully is rather disgusting. Where are the rights of the children?
(Source: telegraph.co.uk)
