Quote Originally Posted by Mo Britain less Europe View Post
No compassion was involved. Only an infringement of the ultimate civil liberty, the right to try and save your life by whatever means possible. The intent was to stop the child from having potential life-saving treatment. If this line was taken with every new treatment we'd still be chewing leaves every time we had a headache.

You do not know if the boy would have lived or died with the experimental treatment. You cannot know, neither can I. It might have worked or it might have helped to improve the treatment for others, that is how science works.
A child incapable of expressing an informed preference is in the care of the state, not of anyone else. His parents are not and never were empowered to override the NHS's clinical decision in this matter.

Modern science does not work by chucking early-stage, wholly unproven treatments at desperately sick babies on the vague off-chance they might work. That would be both bad science and monstrously unethical.

Your suggestion that there was no compassion involved in this decision is, I'm afraid, absurd. Compassion was absolutely at the heart of this decision.