to be disgusted at these comments made by Lord Sumption

[DoreensEatingHerSoreen]

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/law/2021/jan/17/jonathan-sumption-cancer-patient-life-less-valuable-others

Lord Sumption today told Deborah James, who is living with stage 4 bowel cancer, that her life is less valuable than the lives of others.

As a fellow stage 4 cancer patient, I find it appalling that someone could suggest our lives are less valuable than those without cancer.
In spite of my diagnosis, I live a wonderful and fulfilling life, and intend to carry on doing so for as long as is possible.
It's terrifying to think that I may be denied access to a ventilator should I become ill with Covid, and I believe we have a collective duty to do everything we can to reduce pressure on the NHS and minimise the horrific collateral damage of Covid on those living with other illnesses and conditions.

@Jetatyeovilaerodrome

Deborah James is a young woman isn't she? Or is just at my age that I can look at her and see a young woman?

She is young by anyone's standards. She has 2 children who are about 13 and 10 I think.

When people are worrying about their kids mental health because of lockdown maybe they should stop and think of her kids mental health.

We can't avoid death forever, let's all just commit suicide today, what's the point of delaying the inevitable. Do you want to go first?

What an absolute piece of work you must be

@SummerBlondey

How many times have we watched movies, depicting an Extinction Level Event, and the Government have spaces in an underground bunker for the select few hundred thousand, who will save the human race? They send young people of reproductive age, who are Doctors, Engineers, Scientists, Farmers....no one ever questioned that.

Yes we should all live life according to Hollywood.

@formerbabe

We can't avoid death forever, let's all just commit suicide today, what's the point of delaying the inevitable. Do you want to go first?

What an absolute piece of work you must be

Behind you though. I'm not advocating leaving people like Deborah James to die because they are less valuable.

For this reason, ethically, it's better to stick with 'all lives have equal value' because quite frankly who are we to assign subjective value measures??

Which is fine until somebody HAS to make a choice! Health resources are not infinite. Doctors have to make this choice every day. And it may become more frequent and more necessary as the demands on the NHS increase. In theory all lives are equal, until you have to decide which of two people you are going to give the ventilator to.

If you can show a breakdown of itu bed occupancy by age and underlying conditions, that would be really helpful.

Well, I've done that on the other thread by age, but you didn't like the source (respected professor at UCL, plus ICARC etc.) But here are a couple again just for those on this thread who think it's only 85 year olds in ICU that this whole thing is about.

Anyway @ancientgran you are completely missing my point. I don't take pleasure in death. I just don't think death is so unusual that we should give up everything in order to avoid it

Theoretically we could ban cars then we'd have no deaths from road traffic accidents. We don't do that because as a society we believe the benefits of cars outweighs any potential deaths.

His comment is abhorrent but as evidenced on here in the last few months there are plenty of people who think that way. Although it can be very demoralising, I remind myself that there are also people think it all right to steal cars, burgle houses, murder and rape. They have always been there but the Internet gives them a voice. It's terrible that someone like him served on the Supreme Court.

@formerbabe you are missing the point. Well two points. Deborah James deserved to be shown a bit of respect and compassion and if we let the NHS become overwhelmed lots of young people will die because there won't be resources for them.

As a disabled person I am sickened by some of the posts on here. I am not sickened by ICU doctors having to make practical decisions on outcome but I am by people talking about children's MH/lives being sacrificed for the 'old and the sick'. My young adults thankfully have compassion and don't see themselves as sacrificing anything, despite my DS missing GCSEs and DD missing a uni placement. They just see it as them playing their part with the whole of society on stopping this thing overwhelming the NHS and other areas of society, which it would without lockdown, and which would result in far more long term MH issues as well as disability and death.

Which is fine until somebody HAS to make a choice! Health resources are not infinite. Doctors have to make this choice every day. And it may become more frequent and more necessary as the demands on the NHS increase. In theory all lives are equal, until you have to decide which of two people you are going to give the ventilator to.

Which is why we need lockdown in order to try and stop this happening as much as possible. Which is the exact point Deborah James was making - sheesh!

@formerbabe was I wailing? I don't think anyone heard me wailing so you made that up.

This thread was about the OP being disgusted by LS comments, he has tried and his supporters on here have tried to make out he was taken out of context which isn't true.

If there are limited ICU beds, and we start to run out of them, who gets the priority?

The patient who is most likely to live?
The patient who is most likely to have most quality of life left?

Sir Tom Moore or Piers Morgan?

So i presume you want to ban cars @ancientgran in order to save the lives of those killed in road traffic accidents? Because lives could be saved and that's the most important thing ever.

@ancientgran the only wailing I see on here is lockdown deniers trying to make out the whole thing is about rescuing elderly frail people from death.

Which it is not, and is regularly and robustly evidenced, but they do not listen.

Baffling.

Which is why we need lockdown in order to try and stop this happening as much as possible. Which is the exact point Deborah James was making - sheesh!

We have lockdown and the number in hospital is increasing anyway. Why should practicalities or worst case scenarios not be considered? Triage may become necessary. Ignoring it or pretending it doesn't happen won't help anyone.

Cases are coming down, hospital admissions take longer so give it time.

We have lockdown and the number in hospital is increasing anyway. Why should practicalities or worst case scenarios not be considered? Triage may become necessary. Ignoring it or pretending it doesn't happen won't help anyone.

The number of infections is decreasing - obviously the number of hospitalisations is not yet decreasing because of the lag of time between infections and hospitalisation.

No one is ignoring the fact that when things get very bad (and indeed during 'normal' times when there just isn't enough funding) decisions are made about who gets treatment and who doesn't.

Lord Sumption's argument appeared to be that people should crack on without lockdown and then when we do get to the point where the NHS is completely overwhelmed, people like Deborah James should go to the bottom of the pile.

Deborah James's argument was that we should have lockdown to stop those decisions having to made in the first place (as far as possible).

For the record he did say that his grandchildren’s lives were worth more than his. He also said all lives are not of equal value and was in discussion about vulnerable people (not just old and vulnerable) he was discussing people with underlying conditions not just the elderly.
His comments have not been taken out of context. I have watched the programme twice and it does appear his intent and what he actually said has been correctly reported.
A quote which always stays with me is “a nations greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members”. As such I don’t think we should treat them as dispensable. Once you accept that you start down a dangerous road and morality gets greyer all the time.

I think the other thing he said that wasn't challenged was that the old and vulnerable can easily isolate. Tell that to someone with carers coming in 4 times a day, having visited lots of other houses. I think people in this position (and they aren't all old, I know someone who has been in this position since he was in his 20s due to an accident) are the least able to isolate.

@Madhairday

As a disabled person I am sickened by some of the posts on here. I am not sickened by ICU doctors having to make practical decisions on outcome but I am by people talking about children's MH/lives being sacrificed for the 'old and the sick'. My young adults thankfully have compassion and don't see themselves as sacrificing anything, despite my DS missing GCSEs and DD missing a uni placement. They just see it as them playing their part with the whole of society on stopping this thing overwhelming the NHS and other areas of society, which it would without lockdown, and which would result in far more long term MH issues as well as disability and death.

If we are having a truth bomb thread....I do not think it is right that your children are sacrificing their education and career prospects for the "old and sick".

You say they see it as "playing their part with the whole of society" which is a very nice concept, but the effects of this will be most deeply impact their age group, not "the old and sick". For decades. You say they have compassion which again sounds nice, but compassion needs to be rational. Unlimited compassion can have unintended consequences and compassion needs to be rational - making decisions based on considerations of cost and benefits, not just on making you feel like a good person.

I would hope you have also discussed with your children what they are actually sacrificing. i.e. their future livelihoods, and not just concentrated on the good virtuous feeling of unmitigated compassion.

I think there has to be very very very good reason to do that to young people and as the programme went on to say, I think we have massively and hugely let our young people down. And continue to do so.

@Fr0thandBubble

His words have been taken out of context. He said his grandchildren’s lives were more valuable than his, because he is old and has had most of his life already. I completely agree with him on this and everything else he has said on the this government’s approach to the Coronavirus.

If you believe that you believe anything. He probably doesn't think anyone's life is more valuable than his. He just thinks he can isolate in his huge house and wait for everybody else to catch it and couldn't care less that hundreds of thousands will die because he will be all right Jack in his stately home with his private healthcare.

If we are having a truth bomb thread....I do not think it is right that your children are sacrificing their education and career prospects for the "old and sick".

Children are not sacrificing their education and career prospects for the "old and sick". Stop with the hysterical hyperbole and get a grip. They will be fine.

@Belladonna12

If we are having a truth bomb thread....I do not think it is right that your children are sacrificing their education and career prospects for the "old and sick".

Children are not sacrificing their education and career prospects for the "old and sick". Stop with the hysterical hyperbole and get a grip. They will be fine.

What you mean is you will be fine.

You have no idea whether children will be fine. Much of the evidence points to children not being fine. It's an experiment that has never been done before on children, so your confidence in them being 'fine' is interesting.

What has been done before is a tanking of the economy and fewer job prospects, and we definitely know that does not make children "fine"