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Does a judge have the power to give up on a baby’s life, even though the parents of the baby want to exhaust all means to make their child live?
A local court in England allowed officials from the Northampton General Hospital to unplug a severely disabled 14-week-old baby from his ventilator and move him to a palliative care unit to die—all against the wishes of the young child’s parents.
The baby, who was suffering from spinal muscular atrophy, died last week while still on life support after his feeding tube became blocked.
Nevertheless, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, which helped the baby’s parents in their legal battle, criticised the court for failing to side with the parents’ wish to sustain the young boy’s life as long as possible.
Paul Tully, general secretary of the pro-life group, lamented how the court system seemed to have favoured death over life.
“For me, this case demonstrates that the NHS [National Health Service] has sold out to the culture of death. How absurd that the health service puts no limit on the amount it spends killing babies before birth, yet goes to court to ask to withhold genuine health care from a very sick little boy after his birth,” Tully told Life Site News.
He further said his group will continue its fight against “this flagrant disregard of life,” while appealing for financial help for the family’s legal costs.
Officials of the Northampton General Hospital earlier sought the court’s permission to move the baby from intensive care and off the ventilator that had kept him alive since he was 18 minutes old after determining that his disease is already both incurable and degenerative.
The baby’s parents, however, argued that the life support helped the young boy experience pleasure. They also described their child as “amazing” and “a fighter.”
