The questions around little baby Alfie’s death aren’t going to go away. They raise a timely and extremely important issue. Who basically ‘owns’ – i.e. has the ultimate authority  over and care of a child  – the parents or the State? – and related troubling issues.

Moreover, the fact that hospitals, at least in New Zealand, now have a practice of deliberately withholding both water and nutrition for three days at least, while waiting to see if a patient recovers from a severe injury, parallels a growing reluctance to put the right to life of the patient first – and even...