This republished article first appeared in The National Review

Readers may recall the Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans cases in the U.K., in which National Health Service hospitals took the parents of terminally ill children to court after they refused to acquiesce in doctors’ recommendations that life support be ended.

In both cases, the court ruled in the hospital’s favor in determining both that life support could be ended and preventing the parents from transferring care of their children to medical facilities willing to provide last-ditch treatments that the families wanted.

Now, a Trust hospital hasn’t even bothered going to court. Instead, doctors have unilaterally withdrawn kidney dialysis over family objections from Robert Barnor, who was profoundly disabled by a stroke, stating that letting the man die is merely a “clinical” decision. From the Telegraph story:

The 68-year-old suffered extensive brain damage and can now only open his eyes and move his head. He requires twice-weekly dialysis treatment for kidney disease, without which he would be expected to die within days.

On Wednesday, the hospital told his family it had made a “clinical decision” to end Mr Barnor’s dialysis and provide palliative care until he dies.

But that isn’t a “clinical decision.” It is a value judgment that the quality of Barnor’s life is not worth living or perhaps, that it isn’t worth the cost of care.

The hospital believes he “has no prospect of regaining meaningful consciousness or achieving any recovery that would allow a return to independent life or a level of quality of life that he could experience”, according to a legal letter seen by The Telegraph.

What is “meaningful consciousness?” Who is to say? It shouldn’t be the doctors, that’s for sure.

And are we to believe that unless one can live an “independent life” or attain a “quality of life” acceptable to doctors, they should be allowed to abandon the patient to death? Because shorn of its veneer of concern for the patient’s suffering, that is precisely what is happening here.

As in the Gard and Evans cases, the hospital has also refused to permit the family to make other care arrangements. From the Christian Concern story on the case:

The Hospital also refused the family’s requests to discharge Mr Barnor home, to transfer him to a care home, a neuro-rehabilitation centre, or to move him from the Intensive Care Unit to a specialist renal ward.

The hospital’s decision-making appears to have been pursued in such a way as to prevent court oversight:

The Trust belatedly disclosed thousands of pages of medical records, which include a second opinion from an eminent expert in prolonged disorders of consciousness, Professor Lynne Turner-Stokes. In a letter which appears to be intended as confidential and not to be shared with the family, Professor Turner-Stokes advised the Trust to present its decision as “clinical” and not to use the words “best interests” to avoid the decision being scrutinised by the courts.

How is that justice?

The family is seeking a court order restoring the dialysis:

Andrea Williams, the chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, which is supporting the family, said: “The trust’s position is indefensible and, we believe, unprecedented. . . .

“Judicial oversight of such life and death decisions is one remaining legal safeguard — weak and inadequate as it currently is — for the principle of sanctity of life and to protect the rights of families against irreversible decisions driven by the culture of ‘right to die’.”

What makes life worth living does not require unique medical expertise that only a physician can provide. It is an issue of religious faith, philosophy, morality, and personal belief. These intimate decisions belong with families and patients, not strangers, regardless of their educational attainment.

“Futile care” utilitarianism threatens the American medical system, too.

Most families know when the time has come to cease the fight for life. But there is rarely one “right” answer in such circumstances. Coercing those who believe care should continue in the face of medical recommendations to the contrary will only lead to greater distrust in the medical system than we already witness. After all, sometimes doctors are wrong.