This weekend, a Twitter friend encouraged me to blog about Alfie Evans, the disabled toddler who died because the British courts refused to allow his parents to seek treatment in Rome (at Pope Francis’ expense). The Twitter friend based her request on a Tweet I had sent:

When I was born, the doctors told my mother that I’d never be anything more than a vegetable. They advised her to put me in an institution and forget she ever had me. By God’s grace, my mom was a stubborn Irish woman who didn’t often think doctors knew what they were talking about, so she took me home. As time progressed, her decision vindicated her; here I am blogging, after all! Not the most vegetative activity, to be sure!

But over the days since I sent that Tweet, I’ve struggled with whether or not my situation really compares to that of Alfie Evans.

On the one hand, I believe the courts definitely should have permitted his parents to take him to Rome. First of all, as parents, they should have had the final say, just as my mother had when the doctors determined that I’d live in a persistent vegetative state. I proved the doctors wrong. Alfie may well have proven his doctors wrong as well.

On the other hand, I regret having implied that Alfie’s situation would have turned out as favorably as mine did. It very well could have, I suppose. Obviously, the doctors made enormous miscalculations about my future. But little Alfie may not have grown up to attend college, get married and find useful ways to occupy his time. By using myself as a measuring rod, I subtly suggested that Alfie should live because he might surprise the world in the same way I did.

Alfie Evans should have been given the chance to exhaust every possible treatment. But not because he might gain all the abilities that I have. Rather, his life had value simply because he was created in the image of God. If treatment in Rome could have enabled him to live at any level, he should have been allowed that opportunity. Maybe he really would have surprised the world.  It breaks my heart that we’ll never know.

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