The prolonged legal battle over Alfie Evans, a toddler with a serious undiagnosed degenerative neurological disease, has reached a final verdict. The UK doctors currently caring for Alfie made the decision that life support should be removed. His parents fought the decision, a move that has since been supported by the Pope and several Christian groups, amongst others. The full story can be read here, at the BBC.
Alfie was born in Merseyside, UK, on the 9th May 2016 to parents Tom Evans and Kate James. Soon after his birth, he began to have seizures and he was brought to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in December that year, where he was diagnosed with a degenerative neurological condition. However, the exact disease remains unknown. Since then, Alfie’s condition has deteriorated and he has spent half of his life in a minimally conscious state.
As a result of his worsening condition, doctors at Alder Hey Hospital made the difficult decision to remove life support. Alfie’s parents strongly opposed this and moved to fight for their son’s continued life support in court. This led to a UK High Court legal battle between The Alder Hey Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and Alfie’s parents, which began on the 19th December. The parents’ argued that deciding what was in the best interests of their son was their right, rather than the hospitals. The UK law is ambiguous in these cases but does state that if a child is at risk of harm the state can overrule the parents’ decisions. The case brought up comparisons with a similar legal struggle last year over Charlie Gard, a very young child who was also taken off life support against the wishes of his parents.
The judge presiding over Alfie’s case, Mr Justice Hayden, ruled in favour of the hospital in February, saying that continuing Alfie’s treatment would be “futile” given the severity of the damage to the child’s brain tissue. He said that further treatment would be “unkind and inhumane.”
However, Alfie’s dad, Mr Evans, believed that his son was “improving” and, on 6th March, brought the case to the Court of Appeal. The judges decided to uphold the previous decision in favour of the hospital. Mr Evans then took the case to the Supreme Court but was refused permission for a second legal appeal. This was the last legal avenue open to the parents in the UK, and so the case was then brought to the European Court of Human Rights. However, it was considered to be inadmissible, with three judges saying that there were no human rights violations in the case. By the 11th April, a care plan was in place for Alfie that included a date for removing life support.
The parents then began working with the Christian Legal Centre (CLC), which provided them with legal assistance. The organisation’s mission is to legally represent those who have been challenged or discriminated against on the basis of their Christian beliefs. Protesters calling themselves ‘Alfie’s Army’ also began to gather outside the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, and hospital workers and patients have reported that the protesters have behaved in an intimidating and abusive manner. The Merseyside Police are currently investigating these allegations.
BBC reports that Mr Evans very recently shared with reporters that the family is interested in working with the hospital on Alfie’s treatment. He thanked everyone who has shown their support for Alfie, and have encouraged them to return to their every day lives.
Alfie’s parents, working together with the CLC, then launched their final legal battle on 16th April, claiming that the toddler was being unlawfully detained. However, this was again rejected by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. The attention the long legal struggle received from Christian activists drew the attention of Pope Francis, who met with Mr Evans in the Vatican. The Pope has repeatedly tweeted and spoken about Alfie Evans, saying that he is praying for him and that
“it is our duty to do all that is possible to safeguard life.”
Following the Pope’s meeting with Mr Evans Alfie was granted Italian citizenship and a transportation plan to enable him to move to the Bambino Gesu Hosptial in Italy for further treatment. The hospital, which has links to the Vatican, suggested operations to help Alfie breathe and prolong his life.
However, British judges again rejected this, saying that Alfie fell under British jurisdiction and should not be removed from the country. Applications from Alfie’s parents to the Court of Appeals over the decision to keep Alfie in the UK failed, and it was decided on Wednesday that Alfie should not be able to travel. His father claimed that Alfie was getting better because he was able to breathe unaided for twenty hours without life support, and the family’s lawyer called it “inconceivable” that there was not a way to transport him to Rome. Despite this, doctors remained adamant that the toddler should not travel or be given further treatment on the basis that it would not be in the child’s best interests.
Andrea Minichiello Williams, the chief executive of the CLC, summed up the arguments in the case, saying “The judge says the parents aren’t facing up to the reality: He is very sick, he’s not going to get better and that treatment, in this case, is not going to cure him”, but that despite this, there is an argument that parents who seek treatment for their child should not be prevented from accessing a second treatment option.
The outcome of Alfie Evans’s case lends further support to the decisions of UK hospitals to end life support treatment in certain cases where doctors believe that it is in the patient’s best interests, despite the wishes of the family.
So far, Alfie has survived three days without life support. The parents say they are glad that they fought “all the way” and have been spending the last few days at the hospital with their son. They hope to be able to take Alfie home soon. Mr Evans said, “All I ask for now is for this meeting to be a positive one.”
“I hope to have Alfie, on the terms of mine and Alder Hey, to be home within a day or two.”
