I can't help feeling this woman is deluded when she says 'I hope William will choose his time to leave us'. What nine year old would intentionally choose to die? Silly silly unfeeling bint.

odd how this is acceptable with disabled children. If you said the same about your norm child, they'd take it away.

which hospital is it? Was Christopher Reeve called sad and pitiful because he glimpsed ND's doing things? No.
Its all about what nnon-SN think as it always is. They are petrified of disability and think disability = tragic pitiful awful existance.

ugh. i feel quite sick.

i couldn't handle dd2 being suctioned at all - i had to leave the room, and it was awful to watch her slowly turning blue until they managed to get her airways clear and get the oxygen back on, but i can't get my head around this at all.

i'm also horrified by the nt comparison - surely they are not really suggesting that any child who does not follow a normal developmental trajectory is automatically an object of pity and the subject of debate as to their worth, and ultimately, existence?

this is a child that expresses pleasure in the presence of loved ones, enjoys hand and foot painting, banging a drum, and scrunching foil? and has on two occasions so far sustained himself for a period of time without a vent?

please god none of our children end up in this hospital.

i don't understand the trache issue. hopefully the 'expert' will assess if he is a candidate and give a likely outcome. it must be awful for one parent to live in hope and the other to not want to know the outcome...

In the paper the doctors were also saying that the fact that he has normal brain function would make his life a 'miserable, sad and pitiful existence', because as he got older he would 'catch glimpses of what others could do'.

Doesn't mean he'd rather be dead though does it?

I don't know, he obviously has a lot of problems and I've no doubt his mother loves him and wants to do what she thinks is right. But I can't help feeling he deserves a chance. I also wonder if his mother is being swayed by the doctors' doom and gloom scenarios. We hear all the time on MN about people who have children with DS who were given a very bleak and pessimistic view of what life with Downs is like by doctors, only to find that the reality is very different.

I heard some more about this on radio 4 this evening. It seems the doctors are asking for this as they feel that if the child is cared for at home, if he became ill or something went wrong with the tracheotomy then he would have a painful death. They are saying that withdrawing treatment gives him a dignified death, his mother agrees with this.

I think it is fucking awful. I've posted on the other thread in news so I won't repeat myself, I just think it is utterly fundamentally wrong to say that a child should be allowed to die because of a "what if".

Someone on the other thread said that withdrawing his treatment wasn't killing him, it was allowing him to die. I disagree, they would be neglecting his needs to cause death, that is killing him in my book.

I really don't think I will ever see that this sort of thing is the right thing to do.

I hate all this judging of quality of life,
it sounds like this child does have some and would have more if helped.
Riven I can see where you are comming from and that is why this case worries me, if this boy is allowed to die I think it will send out the wrong signals to the "anti's"

and if its approved then what? Given the doctors are also pushing for this, will this give them carte blanche to see children like my dd as worthy of termination? dd, while not on a trachie, is brain injured and going by the docs standards, has no quality of life because she cant move at all.

Riven that's one of my worries. By going to court with this they are comparing their case with everyone elses which is wrong. What they are going through is personal and it is sad that it is being broadcast around the world.