August 11, 2021

Alta Fixsler is a 2-year-old patient at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital in Manchester, England. Alta suffered a severe brain injury and was born with no signs of life, but was resuscitated. Her parents (Abraham and Chaya) are citizens of Israel and her dad is also a citizen of the U.S. They would like to take their daughter to either the U.S. or Israel for treatment, but the medical authorities in the U.K. will not allow her to go. They have deemed that Alta has “no quality of life” and that “the burdens of Alta’s life outweigh any benefits.” Therefore, she is to be denied the possibility of treatment anywhere else and that her life-sustaining treatment at the hospital is to end. Yes, you read that correctly. She is to be refused further treatment in the U.K. so that she will die yet, she is not permitted to be moved by her parents to another country where they can try to sustain her life. Does that make any sense to you? By the way, the hashtag for the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital is #OurFamilyCaringForYours.

Now, in defense of the hospital, the matter is in the hands of U.K.’s National Health Services, which ironically gives “health services” a different meaning than most of us would think of. In protecting Alta from the possibility of experiencing pain while being moved to another hospital, the authorities say that Alta should be left to die. In their minds, the purpose of medical treatment is the avoidance of pain, not to pursue life and they believe they know what is better for this child than the parents.

Alta’s case has drawn the attention of the U.K. Supreme Court, the former Israeli president Reuven Rivlin and even U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer and Marco Rubio who have secured a visa for Alta to come here for treatment. So, there may be more to her story and I pray there is.

If you were part of the National Health Services wouldn’t you be asking yourself the question of how did we get to this point? How did we come to the conclusion that compassion means avoiding the possibility of pain even if the avoidance of pain means letting a person die? Do we not seek to constantly talk people out of suicide because we are trying to convince them that while life has pain, it is worth living? When “health care” policies mentioned above are the practice, the experts should not be surprised when suicide rates increase. In fact, they should take some of the responsibility.

I know that there are limits to medical treatments. I know that artificially prolonging the dying process, when there is no realistic hope of recovery should be avoided. I also know that we have lost a realistic view of life when we think that it’s value is based solely on the avoidance of the possibility of pain. If that were the case, we would all be dead.

Our Savior was called a Man of Sorrows. He was very well acquainted with grief. He knew what it was like to suffer. In his suffering, we are free. In his dying, we live. Christ did not choose to avoid pain; he chose to embrace it that we might live. There is obviously way more to life than the avoidance of pain. If Christ chose to avoid pain, we’d have no hope.

Grace and peace,

Bob

Sunday’s text: 2 John 7-8