https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/state-v-family-who-decides-whats-best-for-your-child/
State v family – who decides what’s best for your child?
TODAY, this article may not be about you and your family, but you never know what is around the corner. The story below should act as a warning to anyone who might lose their mental capacity via injury, dementia or any other affliction. And if you currently care for someone who lives with compromised mental capacity, it is also worth taking note.
This is a tale about our courts, wearing the boots of government, marching into your home to force medical treatment, whether long established or experimental, on members of family members ‘for their safety’. It is about civil liberty being dismantled on the altar of Covid. It is about the creation of a court standing outside the constitutional protection for the UK citizens of common law.
These are not the wild predictions of a dystopian future, but what is happening in the UK now.
Let me introduce you to Tom (not his real name, and his mother cannot speak openly herself, due to an anonymity order imposed by the court.)
At 22, Tom is physically an adult. However, he is mentally a child, with the capacity of an 18-month-old. He cannot make decisions for himself. Tom lives with his mother, who has cared devotedly for him since he was born with an abnormality of the 13th chromosome, a condition known as Partial Trisomy 13 or ‘T13’. He lives a happy life and mum is rewarded with his love.
So effective is her care that assistance from the state is minimal. Overlooked by GP and social services, no one saw the need to visit or to list Tom for priority assistance during lockdowns in response to Covid. Nevertheless, later the head doctor at the local GP surgery (who has never met Tom) decided that Tom needed to be vaccinated and that the health concerns expressed by his mother were irrelevant. This led to Tom’s vaccination status being reported to the local authority which applied to the court for an order that he be given the Covid-19 vaccine.
To be clear, this is a case in which there is no need for the court to step in to prevent neglect or cruelty. Only in such a situation is there need in common law and statute for the court to intervene. Here it is quite the opposite. Ordinarily, Tom’s circumstances fit the expectation of the public and of the courts that parents are best placed to consider what is in the best interests of their children.
You, like me, may be of the view that the court has no place interfering with this family unit. The court process is complicated and exhausting for any parent, and legal representation is costly. In the large majority of cases, the court overrules the parents’ wishes, which can feel brutal.
However, interfere they do. As is usual in cases like these, Tom’s case has been dealt with in the Court of Protection which ostensibly provides additional protection to vulnerable children and adults.
During Tom’s case lawyers for the local authority zealously asserted the life-saving effect of the Covid-19 vaccines and negligible risks. His mother, however, had read widely to inform herself about the benefits and risks of mRNA injections. She believed, as large numbers of doctors have written and in line with decades of understanding in immunology textbooks, that Tom’s prior Covid infection indicated both the presence of a high degree of immunity and that the risk of him suffering a severe reaction to future variants would be next to nil. Importantly, her views were acknowledged to be reasonable. So far so good.
However, there is now an insidious change to the legal landscape. The courts are interpreting the Mental Capacity Act 2005 to intend that families should have no responsibility or rights to determine the best interests for the health of their children once they reach age 18, even if in all other respects they necessarily remain a child. The reasoning given is that when anyone reaches age 18, they become an adult even if they do not have full mental capacity. Furthermore, in the interests of equality and ensuring their dignity, they are to be afforded the same rights as any healthy adult; accordingly, they are to be afforded the power of autonomous decision-making. It matters not that they will never be able to make decisions for themselves. What matters is that Tom is accorded the status of being something he is not – an adult with mental capacity. To achieve that fictitious status, power to decide what is in Tom’s best interests is taken from the family and given to the court.
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