After the last goodbye.

[BongoJim]

I know the last thread was removed because there was too much speculation and I get that. I believe a lot of people shared a lot of personal stories and experiences which were important and gave powerful insights. Would we be able to continue the debate without the speculation (start your own topic for that) and instead just continue to debate where cases like this need to change going forward, how court processes can change as a result of such difficult cases and what lessons can be taken from this awful case without it being a thread about a thread? It would be a shame to lose being able to discuss every other aspect of an important debate just because one aspect of it is problematic for MN. Is it even possible to continue debating the wider implications thrown up by a case like this? If it's not then my all means MN please delete. 🥺

The media never give a balanced view, they change their views and swap loyalties depending on public opinion at the time and their ratings. They know full well that hospital staff will and cannot discuss details or be interviewed. It will be interesting to watch how the media report any Inquest findings and where their sympathy will lie. What's said or perceived to be said by staff and families will be different, as they say recollections may vary and I would imagine would have been in a state of emotional distress, confusion, hope, despair, guilt, anger.

To be fair I think it's actually quite difficult to be balanced in these situations.

Who wants to be the interviewer "challenging" a grieving parent, even when they make claims that deserve to be challenged?

One observation is even without that "balance" public opinion (based on media coverage that allows public comment) defiantly shifted over the period this case was covered, increasingly away from the families position.

It's easy to focus on the "army's" but I believe most people, whilst sympathetic to the situation, understood there was no hope for Archie and that some (or all) of the claims the family were making lacked legitimacy.

Maybe thats a good argument for not interviewing a parent or printing photographs and IF it needs reporting then just make it factual

That makes sense.

Report on court findings only for example.

I can see the difficulties for an interviewer in challenging parents in this situation, but if they had been prepared to do so, albeit very very gently, it might have made a major difference. If, for instance, an interviewer had pointed out that Ms Dance had told the court that she accepted Archie was going to die soon, it may well have changed the perceptions of AA which in turn may have meant that they didn't show such rabid support and there would have been a major injection of reality in everyone's thinking. Generally speaking if some of the more extreme allegations, e.g. of execution, were challenged it could have led to much more thoughtful and reasoned discussions which actually would have been more helpful to the family.

Theres nothing worse than watching obviously distressed people being interviewed on tv in all sorts or situations, its horrible. They play on peoples grief.

100% agree with you both.

It would've been interesting to see how that did play out seeing as anyone who dared speak about it on the group got called a liar,a troll and deleted even if they had posted the court statement and footage.

The whole media thing on this has been awful but do wonder if to start anyway she contacted them to get her story out there and now can't stop? The interviews are so soon after the event and yet there they are but then she could've easily walked away. Maybe a way of dealing with it all but eventually they'll turn no doubt.

What dont understand is the tic tox thing..mum certain it was a challenge and calls for it to be shut down yet has been live streaming this and that on there. Again maybe just can't stop and keeps mind busy

i think the interviews and media attention helped her feel better about a horrible situation and so it makes sense that she would seek that out after the ventilator was stopped as well. Her interviews resulted in people talking about how strong she was, what a great “fighting” mother and she got to tell people who believed her (or seemed to) that he was making progress. The issue to be “fought” wasn’t that her son had hanged himself from the bannisters and pretty much managed to kill himself, it was the hospital.

This is not a criticism, if I found my son like that I would never be the same person again.

The problem, of course, with using the press as an external source of validation, is that it won’t last and interest won’t be sustained and they’ll turn on her if it suits them. She won’t succeed in suing the hospital and now that’s it’s over the press will be moving on as well.

It's quite horrible really when the media pick people up in the middle of a crisis and fawn on them only to drop them as soon as the next big story comes along. I read somewhere that HD was in the habit of messaging the Sky reporter whenever she fancied meeting up for a coffee, and obviously the reporter would have been happy to go along with that. But she just won't now, and losing that source of support must be quite hard to handle in the midst of also having to deal with awful grief and the horror of going back home to the place where everything started.

Good article about the CLC:

fundamentalist Christian Right organisation “preyed on” the family of tragic Archie Battersbee to whitewash its reputation for opposing equal rights and abortion while providing advice that was not fit for purpose, legal and medical experts have claimed.
www.opendemocracy.net/en/archie-battersbee-christian-legal-centre-preying-whitewash/

I read that too quia

It was actually written by the sky journalist in one of the sky articles someone linked here.

So are sky now turning on HD so called lawyers, did they support them and quote them when all this was going on

I haven't seen anything suggesting that, @HappyHamsters?

Mind you, I don't think HD and their supporters realise that in effect that is what they are doing every time they claim she wasn't allowed to present evidence to the court. She had every right to present whatever she felt was relevant; if it wasn't shown to the court, it must have been because her lawyers didn't lodge it, so in effect she is saying they were negligent. To be fair to them, it probably was because they knew it didn't stand up and/or was irrelevant.

I think doctors have to be very tactful about organ donations. If it came across as we want to test for brain stem death and then can we discuss organ donation it is a bit crass and for someone who is maybe not very trusting it will sound very suspicious. I don't know how it was handled in this case but I do think people need to get their heads round the first thing before they can even think about the second. Although we all know that death is inevitable we don't expect it to happen to healthy 12 year olds and I think it is reasonable that it will take time to accept that and if during that adjustment the two sides clash it becomes very difficult.

Some doctors are definitely better at this sort of thing than others, not exactly bedside manner but closely linked. I know when my father was dying one of the doctors made my mother cry and yes it was his lifestyle choice but to say to a woman with three young children, "Well he knew what he was doing" isn't exactly compassionate even though it was true.

Unless you're there its difficult to know what was discussed. Organ donation is a wonderful brave gift that some people are proud to be involved in.it can make sense of a death and feel it wasnt all in vain if you feel you can give life or a better life to someone else. Donors are clapped and the staff line the corridor in silence, its very moving Its a sensitive topic but not sure its crass as it does need discussing at an early stage. It doesnt mean they just come along and whip all your organs out, I think people can be kept on life support just for organ donation if the circumstances are right. Some people just donate their corneas. From my limited experience the transplant teams have been wonderful.

I heard about organ donors being clapped on their way down to theatre. I thought it was only on the US. Personally I think it's a horrible idea. The person deserves confidentiality and dignity on their last journey.

Yes its the usa but others may do it to and they may have permission from the family I guess.

But clearly whatever happened made this family think there was something fishy going on about his organs so something didn't go well with that message.

For what it's worth I think saying things like brave and proud is a bit unfair to people who for whatever reason can't do it. There shouldn't be any sort of pressure to do it.

Great that the transplant team you dealt with were wonderful but as I said doctors vary and some are better at this sort of thing than others.

That's awful however Holiie behaved ,she was and still is very vulnerable not only has she lost her son but she's lost all the media attention, feeding on her, I feel so sorry for her.

BoreOfWhabylon the link didn't work, but FWIW I toured Alcor's cryogenics facility while in Arizona, and in my opinion it's a very carefully presented con

Further research revealed that the legal status of those preserved is that of folk who've made a donation to science - much as people leave their bodies for this purpose anyway - and whether this would suit Hollie has to be open to question

@Puzzledandpissedoff
I agree, a massive con. I cannot conceive how any parent, no matter how grief-stricken, would want their beloved child's head to be severed from it's body and deep frozen. But clearly, some do.

Linking again
www.alcor.org/library/complete-list-of-alcor-cryopreservations/case-summary-a-2789/

Quite so, BoreOfWhabylon, though as ever each to their own

By way of a small anecdote, my favourite (?) bit was when we were shown into the room adjoining the storage facility and a plush curtain was drawn to reveal the containers, at which exact point our guide received a call because "a shout had just come in"

Bearing in mind they receive about 14 new people in an entire year, I wondered what the chances were of this happening at that precise moment - until, that is, I was told later that this happens to every visitor

WTF have I just read.....

How can these people live with themselves exploiting families like this?

Goodness the language is very careful isn't it....but yes, they chop off your child's head and freeze it...

the language is very careful isn't it

It most certainly is, and if you want to go down that rabbit hole their main site makes interesting reading: www.alcor.org/

Fundamentally it's based on the hope/expectation of near-miracle procedures to enable reanimation in the future, while being careful to point out that nothing can be guaranteed because the future obviously isn't known - and all in the knowledge that the "scientific donation" status of the preserved might easily come in handy from a legal standpoint

There's also the question of where it leaves the very first to be preserved, since with procedures improving over time the obvious thing would be to start with more recent ones if reanimation ever became a reality. I did raise this at the time, but of course received no reply beyond a glare suggesting resentment that I'd presumed to ask

Be warned, though, that if you start reading that'll be several hours gone, because the logic fail is deeply fascinating