Big headlines over here in the UK today: The fight to save the life of Baby RB has ended with the father’s acquiescence to removing life support. From the story:
A baby at the centre of a “right to life” court battle will be allowed to die after his father today withdrew his case. Doctors and the one-year-old child’s mother had gone to the High Court for permission to switch off his life support. The father backed down on the seventh day of an emotionally-charged High Court hearing. In a moving statement the judge, Mr Justice McFarlane, paid tribute to the parents’ care for the boy, recognising the “immense stress” they had suffered at the cost of their relationship. In one moment, he said, all their hopes and dreams for their baby had been dashed and replaced by a “a life characterised by worry, stress, exhaustion, confusion and no doubt great sadness”.
The judge had faced the formidable task of deciding whether the chronically disabled child, known only as RB,should be allowed to live or die in peace after withdrawal of his ventilation.
“Be allowed to die in peace” rather than live with disabilities. Kind of sums it all up in a nutshell, doesn’t it?
November 10th, 2009 | 5:15 pm
Based on the justice’s words quoted by the press Baby RB never had a chance or fair hearing. I wonder though what prompted the father to withdraw his opposition. Perhaps he knew the situation in the court was hopeless. How frustrating this is. Too many see disability as inherently negative when it is not. Life with a disability is simply different.
November 10th, 2009 | 6:23 pm
[...] Original post: Baby RB Father Surrenders » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog [...]
November 10th, 2009 | 10:21 pm
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November 11th, 2009 | 12:29 am
How awful.
November 11th, 2009 | 10:16 am
What a horrible thing to happen to a small child. That statement definitely sums it up. I always wonder, in these instances, how prayer impacted, or could have impacted, the family.
November 11th, 2009 | 2:44 pm
One has to wonder what the father was threatened with (perhaps a stripping of his own health-care, which I believe has been used as a club in other cases). I know that nothing on this planet could get me to back down if that was my son.
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