The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 15 - The True Horror of Socialized Medicine

Episode Date: April 23, 2018

A death panel in the UK has sentenced a young child to death. This is what happens when you have socialized medicine and a godless government. This is our future, unless we change our course. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the show, everybody. Thank you for listening. Hope you had a wonderful weekend. I have to start off the week, unfortunately, talking about a pretty tragic story. It's the story of Alfie Evans. And it's important. It's an important story, primarily for, well, for two reasons. Number one, because a little boy's life is at stake. Number two, secondarily, it also gives us a glimpse into our future.

We in the United States, we can always look over to Europe. to kind of see where we're headed, to see what, it's like looking into a crystal ball, basically. And I've always said that Western culture is on a train headed into the abyss. And it is specifically a train, not a car or anything, because it's, Europe is essentially a few train cars ahead of us. But we're all attached and we're going in the same direction. So just look where they are and that's where we're going to be. The only way to avoid it is for us to detach our train car from theirs and then go off in a different direction, which obviously is not how it would actually work with a real train. So the analogy breaks down there, but you get what I'm saying.

The point is, we have not detached ourselves, and so we are going in the same direction. So if you want to know what our dystopian future looks like, just look at Europe. And you can look there, especially with the case of Alfie Evans, who is another sick child who's been sentenced to death by a UK death panel. First, you had the prominent case of Charlie Gard last year, and now we have Alfie Evans in what is becoming a annual or biennual tradition. Alfie Evans is a baby, and he's in a coma due to a mysterious brain disease that still has not been diagnosed, and nobody knows exactly what's wrong with him. doctors at Alder Hay Hospital in London have decided that Alfie is not going to get better. He's an irreversible coma. He's not going to wake up.

He's effectively dead already. His life is no longer worth living. He's not even really living a life. And so the only path now is to just detach him from all the machines and let him die. His parents don't agree. Now, here is the really crucial thing that we all need to understand. standard. Alfie's parents are not trying to force the doctors at Alder Hay Hospital to perform a medical procedure that they don't want to perform. They're not trying to force the hospital to do

anything. And that to me is important because I think a hospital should have a fair amount of discretion when it comes to these things. And if they really think that a certain procedure is not the right path, or if they really believe, according to their own medical opinion, that a person is now brain dead and they're not going to recover and that's it and it would be wrong to keep them alive physically, well then they have to, you know, they need to have the ability to act on their own conscience and their own medical opinions or to not act, whatever the case may be. The families of a patient cannot always be the final authority in every individual hospital because if that was the case, then all across the world,

you would have tons of people who are just being kept alive for no other reason than the family can't let them go. Understandably, the family is not able to let them go. So the patient is kept alive, not for the patient's sake, but for the sake of a family member who just doesn't want to see their child or their parent or whoever died. So you can't have that. So the hospitals need to be able to draw,

a line at some point and say, no, we're not going to do that. But Alfie's parents, they're not trying to push the hospital over that line. All they're saying is, okay, you don't want to do it. You don't want to keep him on the machines. Fine. Give him back to us. Let us reclaim custody of our own child. He's out of your hands. So you don't have to worry about it. Give him back to us. And we'll transfer him to a hospital that thinks it can treat him. And as it happens, there's a hospital in Rome that has already said, you know, they've already welcomed the child and they believe that perhaps they can treat them. It was the same thing with Charlie Guard, where Charlie Guard's parents, they had everything set up, they had the money, they had it all

set up, they could put Charlie Guard on a plane and send him over to the U.S., where there was a doctor willing to perform some experimental treatment on him. But the hospital in that case said, no, you can't have your own child back. And the same thing is happening again without Evans. Now, it may well be true that Alfie Evans is never going to recover. It may be true that he's now effectively dead and nothing's going to bring him back. But first of all, I don't see how the hospital can argue that on one hand he's brain dead and on the other hand he's suffering. And it seems like they're arguing both things that he's suffering and it's not fair. We've got to essentially put him out of his misery, but also he's brain dead. Well, if he's brain dead,

then he's probably not suffering, so it seems like he got to choose one or the other. But whatever the case, there's nothing to lose by transferring the child to a hospital that's willing to treat him. I mean, I don't know. You've got the hospital in London saying one thing. You've got the parents saying another. You've got this hospital in Rome saying, yeah, maybe we can treat them. So there are a bunch of different medical opinions. I have no idea who's correct and who isn't. All I know is that it's very common for a patient to seek a second opinion. And if you were told by a doctor, oh, you're going to die. There's nothing we could do for you. Well, then you certainly would want to go to, you'd want to go to at least one other hospital and talk to one other doctor. Let them see you,

be in their care before resigning yourself to that. And if it was your child in this position, in a hospital and the hospital is saying, we got to pull the plug, there's nothing we can do. Obviously, you'd want to bring him to at least one other hospital before giving up. And as a parent, you should have that right. Should you not have the right to take back your own child and seek alternative care for him?

Should you not have the right to exhaust every possible avenue before giving up? Should you not have the right to take back, your own child from this hospital. Well, not in the UK. Over there, children are the property of the state and of the medical establishment, apparently, and the state has final say over life and death. It's interesting because the death penalty has long since been abolished all across Europe, but the government can still impose essentially a death penalty on the young and the sick. It's only convicted murderers who are free from those kinds of inhumanities,

but sick babies are not so fortunate. In fact, the logical conflict is even worse because you have to consider that abortion is also legal all across Europe in most of the countries, although there are different restrictions and laws that apply in depending on which country you're in. But the fact remains, a child out of the womb in Europe is treated. as though he is not under the jurisdiction of his parents, and his rights, that is the right to die, exist independent of the parents' wishes. But a child in the womb is entirely the property of the mother and is not even recognized as another human and has no rights whatsoever apart from her. Although I guess he still has the right to die. That's the only right that he has,

which, as you notice, the right to die is very big in Europe. They are always, encouraging everyone to explore this rights and they're always fighting to protect it. And this is why Europe is dying because they're such big fans of death. But all that aside, I just think we need to be exceedingly clear about what actually is at issue when it comes to Alfie Evans or any similar case. No matter how anyone tries to frame this, the dispute is not over any medical controversy. it's not really about medicine at all because, as I said, it doesn't really matter whether you think Alfie can recover or not. That's not the point. The dispute is really over two simple

questions. Number one, is life sacred? And number two, to whom does a child belong? Now, if a society believes that life is sacred, then there would be a general understanding that everything within reason should be done to preserve it. But if life is treated in this kind of utilitarian materialist way where it's only useful or desirable up to a point, then it makes sense to just do away with Alfie Evans and those like him. But really, this is about number two. This is about who has authority over a child. The correct way of thinking about it is this. God, God is the first supreme authority, and God delegates responsibility and authority to us. He delegates responsibility for a child first and primarily to the parent.

And that is a, that's an essential point, not just with this issue, but also with abortion. As summer approaches, you can avoid constant grocery store runs and overthinking what to buy by subscribing to good ranchers like I do. Get high-quality meat delivered straight to your door from local farms and ranches. They deliver 100% American pasture-raised meat with no antibiotics or added hormones. Stuff you can actually feel good about putting on the table for your family and friends. The beef and chicken are absolutely delicious. And knowing they come from American farms and ranches really makes it that much easier to enjoy. Plus, have I mentioned, they taste great?

Subscribe to any box and get free meat for life. Perfect for summer grilling season. Plus $40 off your first order with code daily wire. Good Ranchers.com. American meat delivered. because this is one of the major reasons why abortion is such a horrendous evil. The first reason is that you're taking an innocent life, but the second reason is not that while you're infringing on the child's right to life.

I think the second reason, that's also a reason, but I think the second reason is that it's the parent, that abortion is what happens when the parent rejects this responsibility that has been handed to them by God. And the parent has no right to do that. Now, they may have the legal right, but they have no moral right whatsoever.

And that's why I've long said, that when we talk, you know, maybe we talk about rights a little bit too much, especially because the concept of human rights has become so convoluted and confused, and nobody even knows what a human right is anymore. Certainly most people don't, and you can't look to the courts,

either in Europe or in the United States to find out. If you look to them, you'll be more confused than you were to begin with. Most people, you know, they'll go around all day saying, oh, I have a right to this, I have a right to that. They'll talk about their rights all day long. But if you were to ask them, what is a right and where does it come from and what does it mean exactly? They wouldn't be able to even begin to tell you. But the reality is that rights come to us from God. But every right that God gives us is number one it is not a final it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not some sort of like supreme cosmic right because we have no rights whatsoever over God he really is the one who has all the rights in the universe and so in a certain sense we have none

at least we have none against him but he does in a sense give us rights but attached to those rights are responsibilities. Every right that we are given comes attached to responsibility and so they're dimensions of the same thing. So it's true that a child has the right to life. It's also true and it's not said often enough that because of that right, the parent has a responsibility to that child. And it's a responsibility that you cannot decline. Legally you can, physically you can, but you're going to answer for it. So, anyway, God delegates authority.

Delegates authority for a child to the parents primarily, and then to the family, more broadly, and then to the state. So if the parents just completely fail to hold up their end of the bargain and they abandon their duty and they're abusive to the child or they're, you know, a threat to the child's well-being in some way. Then the state has to step in and temporarily the state becomes the primary authority over the child. The state takes the child into its own custom. But that isn't the case here, or at least it shouldn't be. The parents obviously love their child and are simply trying to preserve his life. They have not shirked their responsibility.

they are trying to carry it out, they're being prevented from carrying out their duty to the child by the state, which has put itself as the supreme authority over all children and over everyone else, above the parents, above God. And this, I think, reveals not only the problem with socialized medicine, although it does reveal that as well, but it also reveals the problem in general with secular godless government. because if the government does not recognize any divine authority, then it becomes the divine authority. If it doesn't bow before any authority above itself, then it becomes the supreme authority

in the universe. And so we worry so much about theocracy, we worry that if a government recognizes God in any way whatsoever, then we're going to have a theocracy. And of course, if that's true, then the United States, from the beginning, has had a theocracy because references to God and the creator and divinely endowed rights and all of that, that's just dripping all over our founding documents. But what we see is that the real theocracy and the most dangerous kind of theocracy is the one that results from a government that does not recognize God. Because then it puts itself in God's place and it becomes the God.

And it invents its own religion and then enforces those rules. And we see, I mean, the entire 20th century, we've got tens and tens and tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dead people who can testify. Or if they were still alive, at least could, testify to the great harm that is done, the great danger of these godless governments who essentially become theocratic governments because they are God. And so they get to decree.

And they've decreed in this case that Alfie Evans' life isn't worth living and that the parents no longer have any authority over their child, and they have decreed that. That is their sort of religious decree, not based in anything other than their own authority, which they have granted themselves. So we should pray for Alfie Evans,

and we should also pray for our own country, that we somehow can avoid walking down this same path, although we are already walking it. All right, I'll leave it there. Thanks for watching, everybody. Talk to you tomorrow.