A court has ordered life support to be withdrawn from an 11-month-old boy.

A British High Court judge has told doctors that they can remove life support from an 11-month old baby boy, after a failed appeal by the boy’s parents.

Justice Alisdair MacDonald said Monday that it was not in Isaiah Haastrup’s best interests to continue treatment, ruling in favour of specialists from King’s College Hospital in London:

“Examining Isaiah’s best interests from a broad perspective … I am satisfied that it is not in his best interests for life-sustaining medical treatment to be continued. That, with profound sadness, is my judgment.”

The case had been heard in the Family Division of the High Court in London.

Specialists at King’s College Hospital told the court that further intensive treatment would be “futile, burdensome and not in his best interests”. Haastrup had suffered “catastrophic” brain damage at birth as a result of oxygen deprivation, and had remained unresponsive since then, the doctors said.

Haastrup’s parents had claimed that the boy responded to his mother’s face and touch.

The case comes just months after a High Court decision to allow for the removal of life-support from Charlie Gard, an British infant suffering from mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. 

British infant has life support withdrawn after court battle
Xavier Symons
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charlie gard
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uk
withdrawal of life support

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Xavier Symons

Xavier Symons is a bioethicist and scholar in residence at the Kennedy Institute for Ethics at Georgetown University.

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