Long time lurker here. Just to say how much I have appreciated these threads and how much I have learned from them.
I discussed this case with my elderly mother at the weekend. She reads a broadsheet daily but has no access to social media, and her view was that the child should be allowed to die, and that his parents understandably, are acting from some sort of guilt in trying to keep him alive no matter what the cost to him - effectively postponing their grief, if you like. I agree with her.
Reading these threads has opened my eyes to many issues beyond the tragic facts of the case in question.
Most of all I am appalled at the lack of critical thinking so many adults seem to demonstrate - and above all, that this is only taught FOR THE FIRST TIME at undergrad level these days.
I was a bookish child and I will never forget the moment when I just 'got it' regarding the texts I was reading for O level. There was the text, and what lay below it. Beyond simple differnces of 'meaning' .
A relative of mine , a recently retired teacher, tells me that sort of thing is regarded as post A level now, and from zeezeeks post, the same applies to the sciences. It's horrifying.
Not the fault of the pupils,( i.e. School children, not students- just one example of the over stating of reality that has led us to this mess) or their teachers, but successive failures in policy, I suspect.
Never has there been more need for teaching of critical thinking for children, especially now, in the age of social media.