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.
Archie Battersbee, the 12 year old Catholic boy has died in a hospital in London after his life support was switched off even though his parents were against withdrawing the life support of their son. It was this year that Archie’s family converted to Catholicism. pic.twitter.com/ajjs5bLjao
— Sachin Jose (@Sachinettiyil) August 6, 2022
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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What has happened to the British? Where have their ethics gone? Putting sick children to death seems to be a regular occurrence there. This is the end game reality of “socialized medicine”. It does NOT mean medicine for all. What it means is RATIONED care. The boy was taking up a bed and the time of medical staff. Just sucking up resources as they likely saw the situation.Therefore, poof! Lets just get him out of here. Disgusting. The parents have a right to suggest they wanted more time for the child to recover. The Brits went crazy with excessive church shut downs during covid as well. They have become a major disappointment.
What had happened in Archie’s case is that he had suffered catastrophic brain injury, including swelling of the brain and herniation through the base of the skull. This constricted the flow of blood to the brain stem. He had no blood flow to the brain and no brain activity. There was no medical intervention that could possibly have restored brain function and taken Archie to recovery of health and continued life, assuming that he was alive to begin with. Once the brain stem has died, then in the United Kingdom the patient has died, though the criteria of death in the US is the complete and permanent cessation of whole brain, stem and cortex.
The brain stem test was NOT performed: “but the test — required by the UK’s Code of Practice — was not carried out”. Why not? Maybe they feared the result would not fit their narrative. Also disgusting is that they would not allow the child to come home to die. Depriving the family of that last bit of time together outside the sterile confines of the hospital is inexcusable. Brutal on the parents and every bit the sort of thing you would expect from a totalitarian government. This was a living human being. Dogs are treated better. I do not advocate keeping a person hooked to machines for decades. But this child had not been in the hospital all that long. Children when injured are very resilient, often in an unexpected way. There are numerous stories in the press about children who drowned for instance and are found with no pulse and not breathing. Yet somehow they manage to beat the odds to come back. No matter what, it would appear that care and sensitivity is not on the agenda in Britain’s med schools. This along with the longstanding and largely unnecessary church shutdowns tell you everything you need to know about them. None of it is good.
I think the NHS does have the consideration of finite healthcare resources, but additionally British law treats child welfare differently than we do in the States & that’s a part of the problem in these cases also.
In any case it’s a tragic object lesson about the dangers social media can pose & the importance of keeping smartphones & electronic devices out of the hands of children.
Soulless English judges who wants the least of these dead, regardless of the pleas of the more than willing caretakers who cannot even take them home to die. As in previous cases, the legal system there refuses to discharge them at the same time the administrators refuse any further care. All liability releases were obtained and properly filed.
No go.
This was never a case of financial burden on the hospital – the same as in the previous infants left to die – as the caretakers had an extensive support organization.
These arbiters of who lives and who must die in the hospital abuse a final authority they assume is theirs.
“Soulless English judges” — how terribly true. They’re hanging men and women for the wearing of the green — and now they’re killing babies. Shameful.
Well, many folks wearing the green in the Republic have supported feticide on demand, so that just leaves the Orangemen in the North to protect the sanctity of life. Which is pretty ironic for Irish Catholics to consider.