Ashya King - was the police's response justified?

Last edited by Vermin on Mon Sep 01, 2014 3:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Children are their parents' responsibility, never state property. Suffering is inevitable.

No one is anyone's property. In theory. But laws exist to protect children from their parents when it's needed. That doesn't mean the state owns them.

[iup=3553031]TimeGhost[/iup] wrote:Children are their parents' responsibility, never state property. Suffering is inevitable.

But the state does have to step in when it involves stupid parents. I'm not saying this case is akin to child abuse but they did remove their kid out of a hospital where he was safe and receiving (presumably adequate) treatment.

EDIT: Stupid is not the way I would describe the King parents however - I believe they were probably doing what they thought was best.

You can't tell people how to raise their children but the state has a responsibility to remove children from a situation which is harmful to them.

I suppose the question is whether or not this is one of those situations. From what I can tell, they've fled to Spain in order to get their son treatment so it seems fair enough? But I haven't read up enough on this case to know that's what's actually happening.

There must have been a better method for transferring Ashya to a hospital in Spain than removing him from a 'safe' place with no medicine and sticking him on a boat to France?

[iup=3553040]Dual[/iup] wrote:
[iup=3553031]TimeGhost[/iup] wrote:Children are their parents' responsibility, never state property. Suffering is inevitable.

But the state does have to step in when it involves stupid parents. I'm not saying this case is akin to child abuse but they did remove their kid out of a hospital where he was safe and receiving (presumably adequate) treatment.

Ashya's parents weren't stupid, and the hospital acted over-zealously. But I do understand your view.

[iup=3552880]Fatal Exception[/iup] wrote:On the other hand they are Jehovah's Witnesses so who knows what kind of batshit insane requests they had for their child's care. Ultimately, medical professionals know more about medicine and treatment than a child's parents, unless said parents are medical professionals. If this proton beam is as awesome as it sounds, then a referral from a private doctor should be all that's needed to get private treatment. As much as this case was based on medicine, I wouldn't want morons taking their kids out of hospital for alternative medicine they read about from Jenny Mccarthy. Or not allowing their child to have a blood transfusion on the grounds of religious stupidity.

The NHS would have no reason to turn them down other than the treatment not being effective. It's tough to get both sides of the story since I imagine the NHS are unable to discuss individual cases.

This was probably another factor that set the alarms ringing, they're cray, cray, crazy people.....

[iup=3552880]Fatal Exception[/iup] wrote:On the other hand they are Jehovah's Witnesses.

They don't all stick to the Jehovah's rules though. My next door neighbour's a Jehovahs Witness and he's always consuming larger.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/11069871/Ashya-Kings-doctors-signal-U-turn-over-proton-therapy.html

[iup=3553585]OLIN[/iup] wrote:
[iup=3552880]Fatal Exception[/iup] wrote:On the other hand they are Jehovah's Witnesses.

They don't all stick to the Jehovah's rules though. My next door neighbour's a Jehovahs Witness and he's always consuming larger.

That's like calling yourself a vegetarian and eating meat.

Their intentions for the boy were good, their actions were wrong or stupid, their treatment by the Spanish Police is uncalled for and for them to be kept away from Ashya is potentially harmful to his health or recovery.
However, now the story has been highlighted in the press, hopefully he can get the treatment is so rightly needs....

My girlfriend's dad is one of the senior police officers leading this whole operation, and right now is under enormous stress as he feels the police, and potentially himself, is being made out to be a scapegoat for this whole situation. As far as I can tell, they had to act on the information the hospital had told them - which was that the young boy's life could be in danger.

What I'm hearing is that the treatment the parents are after would only 'fix' the problem in his brain, whereas they actually need need treatment that would 'fix' his neck and spinal cord, or something. Apparently the senior consultant on the Ashya King case is receiving death threats and has the media camped outside his house. Stating the obvious but the media have blown this massively out of proportion regardless of who's to blame. I don't think anybody is completely blameless in this instance, but nor do I believe anyone has messed up completely. It seems to be a series of slightly poor decisions from most of the people involved.

Ashya King - was the police's response justified?

Were the police's actions justified?

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