I am one of the people who thinks there should be no thread about this at this time.
Like most people, I am finding this whole truly tragic story horrible to watch and impossible not to watch. I have thoughts about many members of AA and their behaviours and motivations which I have expressed last week. I have very mixed feelings about the behaviours of TE and KJ.
I am confused by my vacillating feelings about the outcomes of the various appeals. I wonder what I would do if this was DS or DD. I find myself reading everything about the case. I think the judgements are clear, compassionate and humane and when I read them and the medical evidence I completely agree. Then I see the photos and videos of Alfie and can not help but wonder and think that at least there must be somewhere to move him to - even a place in the hospital that is more private and unhospital like, one of the 'flats' or rooms some hospitals apparently have for parents?
I know I will be flamed for saying this but I see many similarities between these threads and AA. The difference is generally in the more educated language and ideas expressed more coherently here. But both have:
Admin who are struggling to manage the posters who keep breaking the guidelines
Admin who are regularly under attack for their actions
Admin who regularly and clearly ask for particular guidelines to be followed and state what the consequences will be if they are not
Posters who ignore what admin are asking for and then complain when the consequences happen
Posters who are critical of the parents (MN) or the hospital (AA)
Posters whose language is inflammatory or abusive
Posters who re-post unhelpful comments which the effect of is to emphasise a particular slant/view
Posters who state things that are not true
Posters who make unhelpful/uneducated suggestions
Posters who speculate
Posters who ask questions which no one except a medic who knows Alfie's current situation very well can answer
Posters who dramatise
And amidst it all:
Posters who have suffered their own similar, heart breaking trauma who are having to re-live every second of it again
Posters who write sensible, well-balanced, humane, compassionate, informative comments
There are no winners here. It is tragic for Alfie and his family. It has raised questions about social media and its use as a means of whipping up anti-authoritarian action, about the quite extreme religious-political agenda and how they use these cases for their own agendas and use very vulnerable parents, about overall reporting of such tragic and emotive cases by the Press and tv, about how we deal legally with these cases, about the pressure on hospital staff in such cases and much bigger questions about social issues in this country.
Alfie will never be forgotten- that is for sure.
Given all of that and the fact that even this morning, people on here and on AA are squabbling over the actions of admin and why particular posts have been deleted, and taking great personal offence at that, whilst a child is dying and his parents are watching him die, I will say again, I find it all inappropriate now.
Yes, we have a right to free speech and I would defend that to the hilt, but it doesn't mean we have to say everything we think. We also have the responsibility to self-regulate, judge what is right and appropriate to say and when is the best and most helpful time to be saying it and when might be better to choose not to.
I just think it would be more dignified if we chose to stop now.