<p>The saga might continue - just like in this case:</p>
<p>[Judge</a> Orders Hospital to Keep Boy Alive | ksl.com](<a href=“http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=82035]Judge”>Judge Orders Hospital to Keep Boy Alive | KSL.com)</p>
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<p>The judge is doing what he is supposed to do and probably next week he will say that all options have been exhausted and that will be it. And it will be the right way to have done it.
My issue is calling this situation nonsense or silly and passing judgment on the family. They have done nothing wrong. If their legal matter were truly frivolous it would have been dismissed. It isn’t frivolous, so it is winding through the process and the ultimate outcome is evident. It is just a matter of respecting the rights of the family. That is important.</p>
<p>Well said Arabrab, What was the basis for the judges decision anyway. Legally the girl is dead.</p>
<p>They asked for more time to find a facility. Of course, that solves nothing much since they still need someone to operate on a dead body and that’s proving challenging, as well.</p>
<p>They likely will not be able to make the arrangements to move their daughter, but that doesn’t mean that their situation is silly.</p>
<p>[MEDETHICS</a> : Journal of Medical Ethics - Defining death: when physicians and families differ](<a href=“http://m.jme.bmj.com/content/31/11/641.full]MEDETHICS”>http://m.jme.bmj.com/content/31/11/641.full)</p>
<p>Okay, I did not say their situation was silly. I said it was tragic. I don’t recall exactly the silly reference because it’s one of my favorite words but I believe it was related to taxpayer funding. There are limits.</p>
<p>Pennylane2011, thanks.</p>
<p>It’s not silly; it’s tragic. It’s sad, and heartbreaking, and all of us pray never to be in it.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, all the “legal” gamesmanship in no way, in any sort of reality, mitigates the tragedy, the sadness, or the heartbreak. But those who contribute to those processes–the lawyers and cowardly judges and other supporters-- provide the simulacrum of ritual; the pretense of truth and love being served, when actually, they might as well have told the family that we’re going to play a game of Candyland, and when it’s done, we’ll all agree your dead daughter is really dead. But till then, you can be “comforted” by this facsimile of care–and put your grief into a bottle we’ll all open later.</p>
<p>I think it’s some sort of sin to play a family’s emotions this way. and some sort of indictment of our culture that it’s even possible.</p>
<p>Well said. And precisely what I meant when I used the words silly and nonsense.
Thank-you.</p>
<p>How are their emotions being played? Their dignity is being respected. The family wanted other opinions and the opportunity to make other arrangements. The judge is the only person prolonging this and he is doing so for the right reasons. Again. Unpopular positions still deserve the full consideration of the law. It is not wrong to engage an attorney and seek the counsel of our system of justice.</p>
<p>So it looks like that link is explaining that as a society we need to determine when we say death has occurred and it looks overwhelming like most say when there is brain death, but others say it’s when the heart stops beating, even if it’s from artificial means. However, there are issue with organ transplants, wills, insurance, etc if there isn’t one way to determine. </p>
<p>It is sad for this family. How long can one continue on a ventilator like that?</p>
<p>Sad and heartbreaking are exactly what is meant by silly and nonsense? Wow. That is a new one on me.</p>
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Well, is it? I mean, I accept the experts’ consensus on this, as I do with other matters that are beyond my ken, like global warming. But a lot of people feel entitled to decide for themselves whether expert opinion is worth accepting, and the deciding factor tends not to be the extent of the consensus but rather the lay person’s willingness to accept that expert opinion. When the matter at stake is the life of a 13 year old girl, I’m inclined to give the family some slack. That’s not being cowardly, it’s recognizing that the cost of letting them continue to try for a different outcome for another week is small in the context of what’s at stake. (That, incidentally, is the legal standard the judge is supposed to follow.)</p>
<p>Those familiar with my posts on other subjects where scientists agree but the public is less cooperative will note that I have little difficulty expressing my exasperation with the adoption of that attitude where the stakes - on both sides - are different.</p>
<p>We are obviously not communicating. Silly and nonsense begin where garland says Nevertheless, but…</p>
<p>Their emotions are being played because this can only end one way. You know it, I know it, the judge knows it, the lawyers know it. But the family is being offered the possibility that there maybe is another way–let’s play the “explore it” game. When there isn’t. When we all know damm well there isn’t.</p>
<p>If that’s not playing their emotions, then I don’t know what is. I think it’s ethically criminal.</p>
<p>Thoughtful minds may disagree.</p>
<p>I read your posts, flossy, but it seems that you didn’t. They were beyond judgment, callous and also flip. Not much in common with garland’s sadness and compassion. I don’t agree with her but we are both deeply sorry for the family. Clearly there is no happy ending here, but treating this family with compassion and understanding is not too much to ask.</p>
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<p>Flossy, no one really cares what you are “okay with.” This is not about you. It’s about a young girl whose parents are clinging to the hope, however small, that she might experience some kind of miracle and come out of her vegetative state. They are not the first parents to do this, as others have noted.</p>
<p>I really don’t see why so many people here are so judgmental and cold.</p>
<p>An older article from the NY Times published after the Utah tragedy:</p>
<p><a href=“Even as Doctors Say Enough, Families Fight to Prolong Life - The New York Times”>Even as Doctors Say Enough, Families Fight to Prolong Life - The New York Times;
<p>The sadest part is while googling the boy’s name, I came across a number of sites promoting quackery and “alternative cancer treatments” that apparently would have saved the boy.</p>
<p>Garland, it is not completely impossible that a facility will come forward to take on her care. It is also not impossible that the family could decide to end this in their own time and circumstance. If the argument by their lawyer was considered valid by the judge, then he had no choice but to grant their request. No one knows what was in those papers, but the contents were what the judge had to decide upon. He doesn’t get to take a shortcut just because there is no other outcome.</p>