Girl dies of stupid parents

[Mister Agenda]

Lek, nothing against you, but I hope you don't think anyone here wants you to become an atheist. I would be fairly pleased if you gained an intuitive understanding of why a child's life might be considered more valuable than a dog's, and thrilled if you started applying critical thinking consistently, but I wouldn't want you to become an atheist without clearing those hurdles first.

I do know why I value a child's life more than a dog's life. Like I said before, that child is a special creation and rates more consideration than other animals. The only reason I can see for an atheist to value her life more is that she is a body of matter that is more intelligent than other animals; and for that reason her life should be more highly protected. This is only because she differs from your pet only in degree of evolution. This mentality taken further would say that if we must kill either a dolphin or a rabbit, we should kill the rabbit because it is more intelligent.

You're better at putting yourself in our shoes than some folks are. Being more intelligent is one reason to protect her life more than a dog's. Just one, though. For example, we feel more connected to a stranger's human child than to their dog, usually. We have more empathy for human children, we value them having the opportunity to reach their potential, to participate in human life to a degree that an animal can't. We've all been children.

My other point is that we have compassion on an adult who doesn't want to go through treatment and decides to let the disease run its course and die in peace.

I don't think that's a matter of more compassion as much as a matter of more rights. If an adult made the same decision for themselves with the same odds, I would still think it is a big mistake, but it would not be society's place to stop that adult from refusing treatment.

But we won't afford the same compassion to a 11 year-old or even a 17 year-old; or even an adult parent who has the best interests of their child at heart.

It is not in the child's interest to have her future thrown away in the name of easing her suffering now. With that reasoning, you might as well go Angel of Death on children's cancer wards. Gaining years of life is worth more than avoiding months of suffering. People generally don't regret their short-term suffering in the long run, once they make it through.

In this case, you who haven't been through this situation claim to know better than the parents of this girl and are aware of maybe 5% of the facts of the situation, know better what course of action should have been taken.

I'm sure if the alternative treatment had worked, we would all be singing a different tune. But it failed, as it almost certainly was going to fail, and the girl is dead when there's a 75% chance she would have been alive today and on her way to recovery if her parents hadn't overridden the doctors. The only way you can say that her parents knew more about her MEDICAL CONDITION is if they were physicians themselves. The fact is, they had no idea of what they were doing. They might as well have turned to Voodoo.

But Jesus is mentioned, and you're team Jesus, so you have to vote for the 'somebody mentioned Jesus' side no matter what, it seems.