B5 S1E10 'The Believers' musings

[Batman]

Didn't really know where to put this so it's here mainly on account of being B5. Feel free to move.
Short recap of the episode: A pair of aliens come to B5 to help their son, who suffers from a respiratory problem. The problem will kill him and the doctors on their world said that it's uncurable and the boy will die. Dr Franklin disagrees and states that a simple operation will save the boy. What was that? Surgery? Oh noes!
Turns out the family's religion forbids cutting open a person's body because then the soul would leave it. Franklin fails to talk sense into them and eventually asks Cmdr Sinclair to have their parental authority revoked. Apparently no legal precedence fo a case like that exists., After some to and fro about how B5 has to respect everyone's belief et al, Sinclair decides AGAINST it. Franklin operates anyway and the boy is saved.
When the parents findd him alive, hoever, they're horrified, call him a demon and stuff. They eventually kill him because to them, he's no longer their son but some sort of abomination.
(there's more to the episode but none of it's relevant to my questions).
So what do you think?

1) Was Sinclair simply a wimpish asshole who didn't want to offend the parents, or were his concerns WRT the B5 franchise and the aliens' probable reaction to a decision like that valid?
2) Does the fact that there apparently IS such a thing as a soul/spirit/whatever that CAN leave the body mitigate the behaviour of the fundy parents?
3) I was rather surprised by the lack of legal precedent. Surely a place as large and busy as B5 must run into a case where they need to go against a parent's wish to help a child sooner or later?

[frigidmagi]

I think the problem was that the parents were in fact aliens and such not citizens of Earth Alliance or even of Bab 5. Whenever you're dealing with foreign nationals, things get tricker. Sinclair might have been worried about causing an international incident more than anything else, but it's been awhile since I've seen the show in question.

Does that make Sinclair a wimp? That's going to be up to you, from my standpoint many military and governing professionals balk at the idea of grabbing the childern of visiting foreign nationals for any reason. Especially if the nation they are from supports the behavior of the parents in question. Is one child worth the risk of losing allies or causing breaks in trade relations? This question is not always easy to answer if you sit down and think about the suffering that losing allies or trade can cause.

Now on my opinion. The Parents had no right to kill their son. None. Zero. What they did was murder with no support for it. However I have to ask if Franklin himself didn't behave in a rather high handed manner by ignoring the wishes of the legal guardians of the child, while he did so for the best of reasons and I support the morality of it... The road to Hell is paved so.

[The Necrontyr Messenger]

2) Does the fact that there apparently IS such a thing as a soul/spirit/whatever that CAN leave the body mitigate the behaviour of the fundy parents?

As I undestand it, the door's meant to be open on that one. Whether the things in question are souls, or not, is up to the viewer's perception. Same with the dying-minds routine.

[Batman]

There's a 'whatever' in there for a reason .
Nevertheless regarless of what it is, in B5 there is something to at least intelligent life that exists seperately from the physical body, and can be removed from it.
So I guess where I was coming from is 'does the fact that what the parents fear-the soul/spirit leaving the body-, or at least something similar actually being possible make their beliefs more reasonable/understandable?'

[Comrade Tortoise]

I reiterate my previous stated opinion that only the individual in question as the right to refuse life-saving medical treatment, unless they are completely incapacitated and wont become un-incapacitated.

They had no right to kill their son, just as they had no right to refuse medical treatment to him in the first place.