{"id":250813,"date":"2021-08-09T12:41:24","date_gmt":"2021-08-09T17:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=250813"},"modified":"2021-08-08T21:34:29","modified_gmt":"2021-08-09T02:34:29","slug":"european-court-life-support-withdrawn-uk-toddler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/european-court-life-support-withdrawn-uk-toddler\/","title":{"rendered":"European Court says life support can be withdrawn from UK toddler"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The parents of a toddler in the United Kingdom appear to have exhausted their last legal option to prevent their daughter’s life support being removed against their wishes.<\/p>\n

Two previous High Court decisions ruled in favor of Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, which seeks to remove two-year-old Alta Fixsler’s life support because her medical team believes she has no meaningful prospect of recovery and says she appears to be in significant pain. After losing their most recent appeal<\/a>, Alta’s parents filed a last-ditch appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) asking the legal body to intervene in the case, and to allow the girl to be transported to an accepting facility in another country. But on August 2, the ECHR declined to intervene, meaning that Fixsler’s life support could be removed in the very near future.<\/p>\n

Alta Fixsler<\/a>\u00a0was born eight weeks premature in December 2018, and oxygen deprivation during the labor and delivery process caused severe and permanent hypoxic brain injury that prevents her from responding to those around her. She has been hospitalized in the pediatric intensive care unit of Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital for her entire life outside the womb. For the majority of that time, she has required mechanical ventilation, also known as life support, which is delivered through a tracheostomy tube in her throat. She also receives nutrition through a feeding tube.<\/p>\n

Fixsler’s\u00a0parents are devout Hasidic Jews and strongly object to the removal of life support because of their religious beliefs about the sanctity of human life. They also remain hopeful that other treatment options at another facility might offer some hope for their daughter.<\/p>\n