Despite the parents’ efforts to keep their 12-year-old son Archie Battersbee alive, a British court decided to stop providing him with life support. In addition, the boy’s parents were denied the opportunity to transfer him from the hospital to a hospice where he could receive palliative treatment.
After life support was turned off on Saturday afternoon, Archie Battersbee, who had been comatose since suffering an accident at the family’s home in April, passed away.
The parents of the boys, Hollie Dance and Paul Battersbee, unsuccessfully appealed against terminating the boys’ life support in the European Court of Human Rights and Britain’s highest courts. However, the ECHR declined to accept the case:.
The physicians believed that transferring the kid to a hospice might have made his condition worse.
The boy initially stayed stable after being taken off of medication, but once the doctors withdrew ventilation, “he became absolutely blue,” according to Ella Carter, a friend of Archie’s parents. “There is absolutely nothing dignified about seeing a family member or a child choke,” Ms. Carter stated in her conclusion. No family should ever experience what we have because it is barbaric.
The parents think they were up against a system that was heartless and lacking in sympathy. The distraught mother of Archie claimed that the state had essentially taken away their right to decide what was best for their son.
Archie Battersbee’s case was not the first in which a UK court chose to remove a child’s life support system, agreeing with the physicians against the objections of the child’s parents. Less than two weeks before his second birthday, in 2018, a boy with a neurological illness named Alfie Evans had his ventilatory support turned off. He passed just five days later.
His situation sparked outrage across the globe. Alfie was defended by Pope Francis and Polish President Andrzej Duda, who said he could award the boy Polish citizenship if his parents asked for it and allow him to receive medical care in a Polish facility.
