Over here in the UK the current big front-page story is Hannah Jones, a thirteen-year-old girl who has a hole in her heart as a result of childhood leukaemia medication. The actual news is the about-face made by her local healthcare authority, which was planning to force her to have a heart transplant against her own wishes; intervention by a child protection officer encouraged them to drop their court case and let Hannah stay with her family as she wished.
The “right to die” is still a very contentious issue (and will doubtless remain one for some time to come) but Hannah’s case is complicated by her age; I think it’s a safe assumption that had her parents not agreed with her decision, things might have gone very differently. Which brings us to the perennial question – at what age should the law permit you to make life-changing decisions like this for yourself? And to what degree should the religious beliefs of your family be taken into account, if at all?
What really offends me is the level of exhibitionist exposure the media generated. This should have been a private matter. We truly still inhabit a dark age of prurience, gloating, arrogance, rudeness, intolerance as well as beligerence.
True; we Brits don’t have a monopoly on righteous indignation and the urge to tell others they should do what we say, but it often feels like it.