Hollie Dance (center left) and Paul Battersbee (center right)), the mother and father of Archie Battersbee, speak to the media as they leave the Royal Courts of Justice on June 29, 2022 in London, England. Archie’s parents ultimately lost their legal fight to keep their son on life support. He died on Aug. 6, 2022. / Carl Court/Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 7, 2022 / 06:40 am (CNA).
Archie Battersbee, the 12-year-old British boy whose family waged an unsuccessful legal fight to stop his doctors from disconnecting him from a ventilator, died Saturday.
“Can I just say I’m the proudest mum in the world — such a beautiful little boy, and he fought right until the very end,” his mother, Hollie Dance, told reporters outside the Royal London Hospital, where Archie died, the New York Times reported. “And I’m so proud to be his mum.”
Archie had been in a coma on a ventilator since April when he was found unconscious with a ligature around his neck. According to news reports, his family suspects he may have been taking part in a social media challenge.
Archie’s doctors at Royal London Hospital had maintained that the boy, whose heart was still beating, was “very likely” brain-stem dead, but a conclusive test was never performed. A UK High Court judge granted the doctors’ request to perform the test, but the test — required by the UK’s Code of Practice — was not carried out because doctors determined there was a danger it could produce a false negative result.
His family, which opposed the brain stem test because they believed it to be too dangerous, argued that Archie needed more time to recover to whatever extent possible.
The family presented video evidence they said showed Archie crying and gripping his mother’s hand. In a June 13 ruling, the High Court judge said the evidence was unconvincing. She ordered that doctors remove the boy from the ventilator, saying the available medical evidence showed that Archie was brain dead as of May 31. An appeals court subsequently upheld the decision.
Last week, Archie’s parents exhausted their legal options when the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) refused to intervene in the case.
“It was the last thing, wasn’t it? And again our country has failed a 12-year-old child,” Dance said, according to the BBC.
Catholic bioethics experts condemned the decision by the hospital to take Archie off of life support. Before Archie’s death, the Anscombe Bioethics Centre, based in the UK, released a statement saying, “It seems extraordinary that questions of life and death should be matters of a balance of probability rather than determination beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Baptized in the hospital
The bioethics center issued a statement following the announcement of Archie’s death.
“The court battle over Archie Battersbee’s care is the latest example of the dying of children becoming complicated by unresolved conflict between parents and hospital authorities. It seems clear that there are serious problems with the current clinical, interpersonal, ethical, and legal approach to these situations,” the statement said.
“The tragic case of Archie Battersbee must lead to reform so that such conflicts can be averted in the future,” the center said.
“Our last thoughts and our prayers are for Archie’s family, and for Archie himself. May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace,” the statement concluded.
In court testimony, a family spokeswoman described Archie’s family as “vaguely Christian” but not church-goers prior to his brain injury. Archie, however, was attracted to Christianity because he saw mixed martial artists praying before they entered the ring, the spokeswoman testified.
“Archie had saved up for and then begun wearing a small cross and a St Christopher’s ring in the two years before the accident,” the June 13 High Court ruling states.
“Archie had been speaking about being baptised and wanted his mother to take him to a church service at Christmas. This led to the family having Archie christened as he lay unconscious. Archie’s mother, brother and sister were christened then on Easter Sunday at the hospital,” the ruling states.
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I have been a member of the neocatechumenal way for more than 20 years. Through it, I came back to the Church. There are certainly aspects that be improved, and if there are corrections to be made they should be made. What I just don’t understand is why criticisms that simply aren’t true keep being repeated over and over again. I understand it even less when this is done by media which are committed to the church. To be concrete: I have celebrated the Eucharist in many different neocatechumenal communities in different countries and I have never ever seen the Blood of Christ being passed from hand to hand. There also is no lay preaching in mass. There are short introductions to the readings and short personal “echoes” to the Word of God before the priest’s homily. It is true that in many communities Holy Communion is received while sitting, but there are dioceses where the Bishop has said that Communion is to be received standing, and this has been done so.
In Christ.
Neocat, perhaps that is your experience and I do not doubt your word. The NC Way made its way to my parish a couple of years ago. They wanted private Masses, separate from the parish Masses, celebrated on Saturdays, at which only their members were welcome. They concocted their own Eucharistic bread. And they did indeed sit through Holy Communion, and had lay people preaching (a parishioner friend attended and was shocked). They did not use our consecrated church and altar, but insisted on a table and folding chairs in a former servers’ sacristy. Our good pastor permits them to meet, but no longer permits them to celebrate Mass on their own, in this manner. When the parish had an evening of Reconciliation, the NC Way people mingled among our parishioners and urged us to all sit together and participate in their service. I told the young man who approached me, who was apparently a seminarian in an NC Way seminary, that I need to concentrate on my own prayer before Confession, and that I wanted to be alone with God (I personally have to get my nerve up for Confession – it does not come easily to me). I told him it is not a social opportunity – it is a holy Sacrament. He apologized and left me alone, but he continued to push other parishioners to sit together and to participate in the NC Way service. I found this very distracting and disrespectful of our parishioners and of the Sacrament of Confession. I am afraid the NC Way is not for me, and with apologies and respect to you, I do not have a good impression of them.