Richard Hain

LATCH Senior Lecturer in Paediatric Palliative Medicine, Lead Clinician Welsh Managed Clinical Network for Paediatric Palliative Medicine, Cardiff, Wales, UK

"We can tell the world that children are precious.  Some modern ethics tries to claim that children lack value because they are weak and vulnerable, or because they can’t contribute to the financial wealth of society.  Some even believe children suffer less than adults because they are not as rational.  What religion tells us is that children’s value does not rely on those things; that a child is valuable just because she is a child. We can show that paediatric palliative care is every child's right, because it is the only way to act in a child’s best interests once there is no chance of a cure.  Every government therefore has a duty to ensure no child is denied good palliative care just because of where she lives."