OK. Let’s start with the circumstances that resulted in your 12 year old hanging himself.
Excellent, let’s have a full public enquiry to see who was actually doing what was best for the child with no functional brain stem… and how exactly he came to be that way.
The whole thing was fucked up.
Not to be an arsehole here, but it was the parents that prolonged the inevitable.
Nobody want’s to let their child go, but when they are factually dead in every practical way, the kindest thing to do for everyone and anyone, including this child, is to let them go.
It shouldn’t have never been allowed to be dragged on for so long. Sometimes you have to make difficult decisions for the overall good. This is one of those times.
If they’re hoping an inquiry is going to conclude the parents should have total control I think they’re going to be very disappointed again.
They’ve gone through multiple appeals because some manipulative religious fundamentalist organisation has been less than honest about what they could achieve. If they’d had proper advice from lawyers who know what they’re doing, and without an agenda of their own, they’d have perhaps come to terms with this long ago instead of feeding off false hope, manipulation and delusion. *That* is what shouldn’t be allowed to happen again.
What are they suggesting? That every brain dead patient’s family has the right to keep them artificially alive in a hospital bed, indefinitely? Where is all the funding for this going to come from, massive tax hikes?
[deleted]
>”We were backed into a corner by the system, stripped of all our rights, and have had to fight for Archie’s real ‘best interests’ and right to live with everything stacked against us.”
You weren’t fighting for his best interests, but your own. Children aren’t your property, to do with as you see fit. At some point, medically literate opinion has to take precedence. I truly hope they don’t get any further with this nonsense.
Exactly, we should have more robust systems in place so that no-one is able to forcibly waste public funds that could be used on the living futilely reinflating the lungs of a corpse. Also, we should have a better mental health system so that fewer 12 year olds hang themselves, and a better media that cannot lie about said hanging and blame it on the internet without any evidence.
I totally agree, but possibly not in the way the parents would like.
At the end of the day they refused to accept the fact he was dead, the legal battle was completely because of them, not the hospital.
What I would really like to know is how it got to this situation. Were the hospital not explaining to them what the situation was in a clear and understandable way? Was the Christian Group telling them something else? Are they really uneducated enough to not know what a brain is?
The media needs to stop covering her now. It’s becoming increasingly clear that this wasn’t about Archie. It’s about her misplaced indignation about the system. It’s clear she isn’t going to let this go.
Parents do not OWN their children. Children are humans with their own rights. The state has to look out for the best interests of children, even against the will of their parents, because parents get it wrong, or worse, can be outright bad.
The system worked exactly as it should. Medical professionals (which she isn’t) declared that he would never come back and was effectively brain stem dead, and in his best interests, should be let go, and the courts accepted this. There was no evidence of malpractice or mistreatment, as this would have been exposed in the multiple courts this was taken to. The system worked as it should.
Let Archie rest in peace.
If there’s any reform needed it’s more conversations and education around death and grieving.
Though I’m this case I doubt anything was going to get through to his mother as there are likely multiple factors skewing her perspective.
I don’t think she can comprehend is the fact she was able to take this to court in the first place is because protections already exist. She just doesn’t like the outcome.
I hope there’s a thorough inquest that can put this to rest.
No they mustn’t, there needs to be a reformation of kids mental health services (cahms), there needs to be regular follow ups with kids that are excluded from school and then “home schooled” if not in school, parents have to monitor behaviours themselves and seek medical help when required due to adhd/asd or other SEMH issue/depression/anxietys.
I agree the system needs reform – to make sure that you can’t have appeal after appeal after appeal. The parents should absolutely have the right to challenge a medical decision, but not ad infinitum.
I think they need to put in proper media guidelines for reporting on these cases as that has really fuelled the fire. It’s wrong to say “he was in a coma”, that makes it sound like there’s a chance he could have recovered. They should be saying “he’s brain dead and his brain is falling out into his spinal cord” (in a more sensitive way obviously). These cases damage the image of the NHS and give rise to ludicrous conspiracy theories that they want to execute him and harvest the organs. It’s only a matter of time before another of these cases, so more science (based on EXPERT opinion) in reporting is needed
Someone needs to look into that Christian legal group. HD’s actions aside for a moment, they were using this for their own causes too. They want to get a legal precedent that where there is a heartbeat there is life, so they can go for abortion laws. Worrying times
Called for an inquiry into the legal battle? How about an inquiry into her or where the funds she raised are going to?
Agreed but fuck off with the demonizing rhetoric that the trust backed the family into a corner and sripped them of all of their rights and how parents know what’s in his “real” best interests. Swear to god sometimes this country will throw NHS workers into a gutter with one hand and aks for their help with the other and expect to be treated with limitless kindness & patience, which they are lol. fuck me
Why are mainstream media constantly pushing this woman’s narrative? Amateur online “sleuths” have uncovered a lot of information that at the very least brings her character into question. This young chap should have been allowed to pass with some dignity, but she is dragging this through court after court and everyone, absolutely everyone is doing everything they can to make these difficult calls as compassionate and dignified as they can. Anybody else’s child would be treated the same.
This seems to absolutely be the case that the people who complain and scream the most get all the attention. Anyone could see this was her next step. He has barely passed and already she is craving more attention.
12 year old hangs themselves. Mother blames tiktok challenge even after his Internet history shows this to be untrue and continues to peddle this myth and it seems this child was thrown out of school and spent all his time online. All Archie’s treatment is NHS funded yet she starts fundraising for his medical care. She even starts selling t shirts for goodness sake. He has been clinically dead for months and yet even to the end she spent more time in court rooms than his bedside but claiming she wants more time to say goodbye. Astronomical costs have burdened the NHS for months during a massive shortage of resources to keep a dead child in some kind of artificial undead state from which there can be no recovery on this woman’s say so.
A summing up would read that a hugely selfish woman with little to no parenting skills while her child was in school and even less when expelled uses the opportunity to raise money from the public for goodness know what (but not his medical care as stated) forced the NHS into spending hundreds of thousands of pounds and now is publicly stating them and wheeling out friends etc to do the same.
She needs to have a long think about her actions.
“In a statement, they said they were “stripped of all our rights”.”
Such as the right to appeal which you were allowed time after time?
How about your sons right to die with dignity and not you trying to be a media whore?
I hope it does go to enquiry, and that they find that the NHS and the courts did everything correctly and the only people who fucked up with this were Hollie and the Christian Legal Centre. Let her dig that hole for herself. Archie is gone. She needs to accept that and move on.
They should be careful what they wish for. I’d be happy to see her actions and motives put under a microscope, especially those surrounding his death and subsequent financial dealings.
It’s been interesting seeing the consensus here change as this has been dragged on
The parents have lost every shred of sympathy, he died back in April, had they an once of dignity and common sense they should have let him go then, when his organs could still be transplanted to others in need, that way the needles death of Archie might have given them some comfort.
If there’s to be an inquiry it should be into the shameful coverage of this whole episode.
The media coverage has been the most disgraceful component, among many, of the last few months. All across the spectrum, from the BBC to the Daily Mail, the media have covered this case with their typical vacuity and just printed out the mother’s PR statements, not addressed the underlying medical reality (that the kid was dead and *literally rotting* for months), and tacitly supported completely unjustified criticism of medical and legal professionals doing their jobs.
At no point have the serious ethical issues been engaged with meaningful, bar one or two articles in the Guardian.
It is now sadly at the point where the mother’s reputation needs to be destroyed as a necessary corrective to the rubbish that’s been put into the public sphere. Another feast for our useless “journalists”.
This makes me incredibly angry, after everything she put the NHS through, now she wants a fucking public enquirery.
No, Holly, your right to our money to fund your hair-brained bullshit has come to an end.
Isn’t she homophobic and was telling gay people to hang themselves or something? I thought I read that somewhere. Maybe Archie was gay and starting to know more at that age, which is not uncommon at all.
If the Christian Legal counsel were worth their money, they would have/should have advised the mother a loooooong time ago
29 comments
OK. Let’s start with the circumstances that resulted in your 12 year old hanging himself.
Excellent, let’s have a full public enquiry to see who was actually doing what was best for the child with no functional brain stem… and how exactly he came to be that way.
The whole thing was fucked up.
Not to be an arsehole here, but it was the parents that prolonged the inevitable.
Nobody want’s to let their child go, but when they are factually dead in every practical way, the kindest thing to do for everyone and anyone, including this child, is to let them go.
It shouldn’t have never been allowed to be dragged on for so long. Sometimes you have to make difficult decisions for the overall good. This is one of those times.
If they’re hoping an inquiry is going to conclude the parents should have total control I think they’re going to be very disappointed again.
They’ve gone through multiple appeals because some manipulative religious fundamentalist organisation has been less than honest about what they could achieve. If they’d had proper advice from lawyers who know what they’re doing, and without an agenda of their own, they’d have perhaps come to terms with this long ago instead of feeding off false hope, manipulation and delusion. *That* is what shouldn’t be allowed to happen again.
What are they suggesting? That every brain dead patient’s family has the right to keep them artificially alive in a hospital bed, indefinitely? Where is all the funding for this going to come from, massive tax hikes?
[deleted]
>”We were backed into a corner by the system, stripped of all our rights, and have had to fight for Archie’s real ‘best interests’ and right to live with everything stacked against us.”
You weren’t fighting for his best interests, but your own. Children aren’t your property, to do with as you see fit. At some point, medically literate opinion has to take precedence. I truly hope they don’t get any further with this nonsense.
Exactly, we should have more robust systems in place so that no-one is able to forcibly waste public funds that could be used on the living futilely reinflating the lungs of a corpse. Also, we should have a better mental health system so that fewer 12 year olds hang themselves, and a better media that cannot lie about said hanging and blame it on the internet without any evidence.
I totally agree, but possibly not in the way the parents would like.
At the end of the day they refused to accept the fact he was dead, the legal battle was completely because of them, not the hospital.
What I would really like to know is how it got to this situation. Were the hospital not explaining to them what the situation was in a clear and understandable way? Was the Christian Group telling them something else? Are they really uneducated enough to not know what a brain is?
The media needs to stop covering her now. It’s becoming increasingly clear that this wasn’t about Archie. It’s about her misplaced indignation about the system. It’s clear she isn’t going to let this go.
Parents do not OWN their children. Children are humans with their own rights. The state has to look out for the best interests of children, even against the will of their parents, because parents get it wrong, or worse, can be outright bad.
The system worked exactly as it should. Medical professionals (which she isn’t) declared that he would never come back and was effectively brain stem dead, and in his best interests, should be let go, and the courts accepted this. There was no evidence of malpractice or mistreatment, as this would have been exposed in the multiple courts this was taken to. The system worked as it should.
Let Archie rest in peace.
If there’s any reform needed it’s more conversations and education around death and grieving.
Though I’m this case I doubt anything was going to get through to his mother as there are likely multiple factors skewing her perspective.
I don’t think she can comprehend is the fact she was able to take this to court in the first place is because protections already exist. She just doesn’t like the outcome.
I hope there’s a thorough inquest that can put this to rest.
No they mustn’t, there needs to be a reformation of kids mental health services (cahms), there needs to be regular follow ups with kids that are excluded from school and then “home schooled” if not in school, parents have to monitor behaviours themselves and seek medical help when required due to adhd/asd or other SEMH issue/depression/anxietys.
I agree the system needs reform – to make sure that you can’t have appeal after appeal after appeal. The parents should absolutely have the right to challenge a medical decision, but not ad infinitum.
I think they need to put in proper media guidelines for reporting on these cases as that has really fuelled the fire. It’s wrong to say “he was in a coma”, that makes it sound like there’s a chance he could have recovered. They should be saying “he’s brain dead and his brain is falling out into his spinal cord” (in a more sensitive way obviously). These cases damage the image of the NHS and give rise to ludicrous conspiracy theories that they want to execute him and harvest the organs. It’s only a matter of time before another of these cases, so more science (based on EXPERT opinion) in reporting is needed
Someone needs to look into that Christian legal group. HD’s actions aside for a moment, they were using this for their own causes too. They want to get a legal precedent that where there is a heartbeat there is life, so they can go for abortion laws. Worrying times
Called for an inquiry into the legal battle? How about an inquiry into her or where the funds she raised are going to?
Agreed but fuck off with the demonizing rhetoric that the trust backed the family into a corner and sripped them of all of their rights and how parents know what’s in his “real” best interests. Swear to god sometimes this country will throw NHS workers into a gutter with one hand and aks for their help with the other and expect to be treated with limitless kindness & patience, which they are lol. fuck me
Why are mainstream media constantly pushing this woman’s narrative? Amateur online “sleuths” have uncovered a lot of information that at the very least brings her character into question. This young chap should have been allowed to pass with some dignity, but she is dragging this through court after court and everyone, absolutely everyone is doing everything they can to make these difficult calls as compassionate and dignified as they can. Anybody else’s child would be treated the same.
This seems to absolutely be the case that the people who complain and scream the most get all the attention. Anyone could see this was her next step. He has barely passed and already she is craving more attention.
12 year old hangs themselves. Mother blames tiktok challenge even after his Internet history shows this to be untrue and continues to peddle this myth and it seems this child was thrown out of school and spent all his time online. All Archie’s treatment is NHS funded yet she starts fundraising for his medical care. She even starts selling t shirts for goodness sake. He has been clinically dead for months and yet even to the end she spent more time in court rooms than his bedside but claiming she wants more time to say goodbye. Astronomical costs have burdened the NHS for months during a massive shortage of resources to keep a dead child in some kind of artificial undead state from which there can be no recovery on this woman’s say so.
A summing up would read that a hugely selfish woman with little to no parenting skills while her child was in school and even less when expelled uses the opportunity to raise money from the public for goodness know what (but not his medical care as stated) forced the NHS into spending hundreds of thousands of pounds and now is publicly stating them and wheeling out friends etc to do the same.
She needs to have a long think about her actions.
“In a statement, they said they were “stripped of all our rights”.”
Such as the right to appeal which you were allowed time after time?
How about your sons right to die with dignity and not you trying to be a media whore?
I hope it does go to enquiry, and that they find that the NHS and the courts did everything correctly and the only people who fucked up with this were Hollie and the Christian Legal Centre. Let her dig that hole for herself. Archie is gone. She needs to accept that and move on.
They should be careful what they wish for. I’d be happy to see her actions and motives put under a microscope, especially those surrounding his death and subsequent financial dealings.
Btw, there is already a movement to get the process changed, organised by the [Charlie Gard Foundation](https://thecharliegardfoundation.org/about/what-is-charlies-law/). Back them if you must, but not whatever this mother and the fundies cook up.
It’s been interesting seeing the consensus here change as this has been dragged on
The parents have lost every shred of sympathy, he died back in April, had they an once of dignity and common sense they should have let him go then, when his organs could still be transplanted to others in need, that way the needles death of Archie might have given them some comfort.
If there’s to be an inquiry it should be into the shameful coverage of this whole episode.
The media coverage has been the most disgraceful component, among many, of the last few months. All across the spectrum, from the BBC to the Daily Mail, the media have covered this case with their typical vacuity and just printed out the mother’s PR statements, not addressed the underlying medical reality (that the kid was dead and *literally rotting* for months), and tacitly supported completely unjustified criticism of medical and legal professionals doing their jobs.
At no point have the serious ethical issues been engaged with meaningful, bar one or two articles in the Guardian.
It is now sadly at the point where the mother’s reputation needs to be destroyed as a necessary corrective to the rubbish that’s been put into the public sphere. Another feast for our useless “journalists”.
This makes me incredibly angry, after everything she put the NHS through, now she wants a fucking public enquirery.
No, Holly, your right to our money to fund your hair-brained bullshit has come to an end.
Isn’t she homophobic and was telling gay people to hang themselves or something? I thought I read that somewhere. Maybe Archie was gay and starting to know more at that age, which is not uncommon at all.
If the Christian Legal counsel were worth their money, they would have/should have advised the mother a loooooong time ago